


Sealing My Own Fate

by Bomaruto



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explosions, Fuuinjutsu, Gen, Isekai, OC, Young Prodigy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2020-07-24 18:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 67,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bomaruto/pseuds/Bomaruto
Summary: You never expected to wake up in Konoha. But now that you're officially Uzumaki Sota, it's time to explore the world, learn Fuuinjutsu, befriend Itachi and try not to mess with Danzo.What fun are new friends if they die in a massacre or have to play the bad guy?  Better do your best and find a way to stop it, but there are ears everywhere.In the end, you'll learn that life as a young prodigy is far from easy as you slowly seal your own fate with your own dumb decisions.





	1. Chapter 1

What happened. What's that pain? You grasp your head in pain. Everything feels wrong, this wasn't your head. You clutch your hair and it was clearly not your own hair. Not your nose, not anything.

And then a large hand touched your head and you the pain started to going away, but not the existential crisis.

"Can you open your eyes?" A voice asked.

You could.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" The man said, who you know recognized as Iruka from the well-known anime Naruto.

"Three," you replied.

"You remember what my name is?" he asked.

"It's Iruka right?" You said.

"Right, and your own name?" He asked.

"My own name," you repeated. You'd no idea what your name was. Sure you know your real name, but not here in this world. So you had to admit, "I don't know."

"Your name is Uzumaki Sota. Do you remember how old you are?" He asked.

You shook your head.

"Do you know where you are?" He asked.

"Konoha."

"Right, your eyes are fine and you remember things, not just anything about yourself. Can you tell me the colour of your hair without looking?"

"Yellow?" you guessed based on Naruto's hair.

"No, that's Naruto, your hair is red," he said.

"I don't understand anything, memory isn't supposed to work like that," he mumbled to himself, before turning to you. "You're six years old and you're at the academy training to become a ninja. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes," you replied. "What happened?"

"Another student thought it was funny to drop a rock on your head while you were walking under the roof"

"Who was it?" You asked.

"I'm not telling you as I don't want you to go and take revenge on them, but they're getting punished."

"I wouldn't do that," you pouted. You had to use some of the powers your young age granted you.

"I'm not taking any chances."

"And what would I do?" You asked you kind of need to know to act like yourself.

"I'm not giving you ideas," Iruka replied.

Damn it. What kind of kid were you that Iruka was worried. Since you were an Uzumaki, where you as much of a prankster as Naruto?

"I'm getting someone to check on you, you should lie down and get some rest. Hopefully, your head will get better," he said and left you on the bed.

There was a mirror in the room so you ignored the request to rest and took a look at yourself.

And right as Iruka had said, a cute kid was looking at you with green eyes in the mirror. This was you now. With vibrant red hair, kind of like an early Kushina, your heritage was not that strange.

You tried locating the head wound, though finding blood in within your hair wasn't the easiest task, especially now as the pain was gone. Though you knew it was in the top of your head since the rock was dropped on you.

And as you tilted your head forward, you could see it in the mirror, a smidge of red not fitting the rest of your bushy redhead. As you parted your hair to get a better look at your scalp, you could see no injury at all. Double checked and triple checked but your head was completely fine.

You could only conclude that the awesome Uzumaki genes gave you similar healing ability to Naruto. It wasn't all Kyuubi.

You needed to recollect what you knew and didn't know.

You knew that you somehow got into the world of Naruto with the same people as in the series. Naruto was still there, you had not replaced him. But your existence was out of place. You know nothing about yourself and you couldn't have been a canon character who died too early. As the only other Uzumaki, you'd be mentioned in some flashback for sure. And Iruka looked younger than you remembered him to be. So all you could conclude was that Iruka was familiar with Naruto, but Naruto hadn't graduated yet either. Giving you a span of perhaps six years.

You could quickly check the facts, but it was nice to see that your head was working properly and make proper deductions. You may have the body of a six-year-old, but the mind was not. And that would make sense in a world where magic was commonplace.

It would also make it impossible to pretend that something wasn't strange about you.

And in came another man you recognized.

Inoichi

"Do you know who I am?" He asked as he sat down on a chair next to your bed.

You nodded.

"What do you know about me?" He asked.

"You're Yamanaka Inoichi and you're Ino's father. Are you here to step into my mind to see what's wrong with me?" You asked.

"No, I'm not allowed. But how do you know that, are you friends with Ino?"

"I don't think so. How old is she?" You asked, prodding for information.

"She's in your class, so around your age," he said.

"Oh," you answered. From his perspective, this would make even less sense.

It was at this point a horrifying though got into your head. Would you ever get any fangirls? It would just be wrong, so you hoped fate was on your side. But as long as you didn't save Hinata from bullying and wasn't Sasuke. You should be completely safe. And given your age, you should be safe for at least six years. And by then you'd placed on teams making the problem less likely later on.

Did you have any fun Kekkei Genkai?

You were an Uzumaki with wonderful hair. You could try exploring seals. It was always a mystery in canon. How they worked, what they could do, how to make them and why they weren't more widely used.

You were probably already a better student than Naruto, and now definitely. Given that your mind would be that of an adult and your brain what of a child, shouldn't this give you a massive boost to your learning rate?

"Do you still remember your name?" He asked you.

"Yes, Uzumaki Sota," you told him.

"Good, you seem to be able to form new memories, at least in the short term. It's a good sign. You can go now, I'll check in on your in a few days and Iruka will see to you too. You can go home now," he said and tousled your hair.

But there was one problem.

"Where do I live and do I have parents?" You asked before he could leave you.

"You're an orphan," he said. "I don't know anything about your parents, I'm sorry. I'll ask Iruka to show you your way home."

-x-

As you were walking through the streets with Iruka you got to get a real look at the village. You'd not seen it like this before. It was a real place, not like in the games you've played where only the stuff to developers bothered to make was put in place.

"Do things seem new to you?" Iruka asked as he could see on you that it seemed this was the first time you've seen the village.

"Some, but not everything, I recognize the Mountain with all the faces and the Hokage tower. Could we stop for ramen on the way?" You asked.

"Oh no, don't tell me that your head injury turned you into another Naruto," he said.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to skip class or pull pranks on you. I just want to taste it," you said.

"Very well, I just got my paycheck and you've been through a lot today, but only one bowl."

"Thanks, sensei," you said and smiled to him.

-x-

That was another titbit of information down. Teuchi's ramen was good, but you wouldn't go there every day. You would need to figure out how much pocket money you got each month. Until then you better just buy cheap, so you wouldn't run out of money.

As the two of you entered your apartment, another question came to your mind.

"Where can I buy food?" You asked.

"You don't have to worry about that, someone will deliver it to you regularly," he said.

"I thought Naruto had to get that himself and he's an orphan too, right?" You asked, trying to discern the differences between this world and the canon world.

"I don't know how you know about that, but Naruto ended up not eating much of his food, so he got money to buy himself ramen instead. But please, eat what you're given, its better for you than what you'll end up buying yourself," Iruka told you. "But you're getting some spending money for snacks and other stuff you might want. You should have a wallet here somewhere."

Or nobody wanted to deliver food to the demon kid. If you were both six, that would mean that the Kyuubi attack happened around six years ago. That was not enough to heal the wounds.

It gave you a bit of comfort that orphans weren't as badly neglected as canon could suggest. But expecting a kid to make their own balanced meals was still a bit too much in your view.

"How can I learn Fuuinjutsu?" You asked.

"Why do you want to learn that?" He asked.

"Head injury," you replied. It was the best you could come up with.

-x-

"You had something you wanted to report?" Hokage asked his two visitors.

Umino Iruka and Yamanaka Inochi were in front of him.

"Uzumaki Sota suffered a head injury today, he's fine but his memory is all over the place. He has forgotten basic information about himself and gained memories of things he shouldn't have known." Inochi explained. "May I ask about something?"

"Go ahead,"

"Has Danzo tried getting hands on the boy?" He asked.

"No," Hiruzen said without implying anything further.

"Why would Danzo want anything to do with him?" Iruka asked.

"It's none of your business Iruka," he answered.

"He's my student, that makes it my business. And it makes no sense, he got a head injury nothing more."

"Could be a genjutsu. You may be an excellent school teacher, but that doesn't mean you couldn't be fooled. The only mark left after the incident was a smidge of blood which could have gotten there another way," Inochi explained.

"We'll talk more about this later, Inochi. Iruka, did you notice anything other strange things about him?" The Hokage asked Iruka.

"He seems more mature, he wanted ramen, doesn't seem to mind yellow hair anymore and he wanted to learn to learn Fuuinjutsu."

"Kids usually aren't interested in those things. I'll make sure that he'll get a decent tutor. If he gets half as good as the average Uzumaki, he'd be a good resource for the village."

-x-

Next day you realized how boring school was for six-year-olds. So you were resting your chin on your desk while Iruka was talking about basic maths. You started to understand Naruto now. Though unlike Naruto, you knew all this stuff and you probably knew stuff Iruka had no idea about. As you doubted the ninja maths curriculum went that far.

And you had no interest in socializing with a bunch of small children, it would just be weird.

Last class of the day was all about more practical skills. Target shooting.

It was clear that the Japanese came to you as it was your first language in this world, but how would you fare with ninja abilities. You never had the habit of throwing knives in your previous life, but that was a habit you had to change as an aspiring ninja.

As you observed your fellow students and their below-par performance, you realized how stupid you were right now. You were smalls kid, you weren't supposed to be good at it. Most didn't even manage to hit the target, much less hit the bullseye. All you knew was that Sasuke should be somewhat decent at it, as Itachi had probably have tried teaching him a bit. So you decided to study him. Repeating his movements with your own wrist as you were watching.

And when it was your turn you tried staying focused. The key to this exercise was two-fold. Enough power and consistency, then you could adjust your aim for the next throw.

The first throw hit the edge of the target, so you nudged the next one closer to the centre. And for each kunai, you got slightly closer to the middle, till you almost scored a bullseye with your last one.

"Good job as usual Sota," Iruka commented, as you were the only one apart from Sasuke to manage to hit with all kunai on the target.

So you didn't impress him. Sure, you were competing with other six-year-olds. But they had actually done this before. But it would be nice to get some acknowledgement.

So next piece of information. From the perspective of a pre-amnesia Uzumaki Sota, your knowledge was new but your skills were not.

"I'm going to beat you!" Naruto yelled and pointed at you.

Wait… was what happening? He was supposed to be challenging Sasuke not you. Don't screw over the timeline so I cannot predict anything Naruto!

Naruto was quick, but not focused as he threw his five in rapid succession. Not one hit the target nor the tree the target was tied to.

The class responded with mocking laughter while you stayed silent.

You wanted to interfere. But everything turned well in the end, the less you did here the better. Even if you turned into another Sasuke with a vocabulary of just ' _hn'_.

If you didn't know better you'd be worried about stealing Sasuke's spot in Team 7. But the whole best with the worst talk was just a ploy to get Naruto to accept his fate. Going through the other teams and everyone was either together due to family connections or synergy when it came to tracking. Team 7 was the leftovers. That still left you as the fourth wheel.

As the class had ended, you turned to Iruka to ask him about earlier.

"Why do Naruto hate me?"

"You used to bully him, and told him that he wasn't a real Uzumaki due to his yellow hair. You really hurt his feelings," he explained to you.

"Why would I do that?" You questioned.

"If I understood that, my job would have been much easier. Just be nice to him would you?" He asked.

You gave him a nod.

"Are you Sota," a man with a senbon sticking out of his mouth asked from behind you.

"Yes, you're Genma right?"

"So the rumour is true, you really know everyone's name. Iruka told me that you wanted to learn to make seals, so I'm going to be your teacher."

"Nice, we're starting now?" You asked.

"I was thinking so, follow me and we can find an empty classroom," he said.

-x-

On the desk between you, he put down his bag and withdrew some supplies.

"What do you know about sealing already?"

"You can do all kind of cool things. Make explosions, store items, seal tailed-beast," you said. And why did you mention that last bit? Did your Uzumaki genes remove all your filters?

Better to just note that with every one of your other discoveries. Your behaviour was clearly a mix of yourself and this new body you've gained. And combined with the previous discoveries, you could already draw out a convincing conclusion. You'd always been a prodigy, as even in the ninja world, the brain wasn't there just as decoration. And based on your knowledge about Naruto prodigies, that wouldn't end well for you.

Genma was a professional and wouldn't tell you that you just said something very suspicious, he just moved on and gave you the first exercise.

And it couldn't start more boring. He drew a few shapes, characters and some random scribbles and told you to replicate them, starting with the easiest.

But you got the idea, accuracy and calligraphy were important for seals along with replication. And this exercise let him check and measure your abilities.

May your Uzumaki genes save you.

Shapes were easy, as it turned out that your eye to hand coordination was much better here than in real life, your current body was much nicer than your old body already, despite its size.

Kanji a bit worse, but you knew something about how it all worked and taking your time and do it one line at a time wasn't that bad. Though your muscle memories didn't help you out with these, so these were obviously above your skill level. You were no worse or no better at reading and writing than the prodigy you inhabited.

He wouldn't have much interest in seeing you write stuff you already knew, but rather see your process in tackling new problems.

And you did a pretty good job if you were allowed to say so.

His last scribbles were messy. No clear lines, rather loops. Was he going to drop you if you couldn't do this last part?

Better not take the chance.

From the pile of supplies, you picked up a ruler and started making small markings around the different scribbles. But Genma stayed shut and just let you continue on.

This was a trick you've seen in children activity books ages ago. You had a small picture with a grid overlayed and a bigger grid where you were supposed to copy it in. This divided the bigger problem into smaller more manageable problems.

And from there it was just getting an overview of the overall structure and start copying.

But you were happy enough with the result.

"Did I pass?" You asked.

"This wasn't a test, I just wanted to see where we should begin," Genma stated and added. "I see why some call you next Itachi."

"Don't compare me to him. Besides, he graduated when he was seven. All I did was copy some scribbles," You stated. Even if it was for the greater good, Itachi had still slaughtered his entire clan. So the comparison gave you a chill down your back.

"And Kakashi graduated when he was five, and Itachi is better than him. You're an orphan with no clan to teach you, and there is no pressing conflict to make you graduate early.

"What I'm wanting to say is that the way you approach problems is rare for someone your age. If it isn't perfect it's not good enough, but its not a healthy way of thinking."

"Thanks, can we go back to seals?" you said. No reason to argue with him, people gave six-year-olds too much credit. People wanted to see prodigies, so they attributed any accomplishments to a supposed superior intellect.

"Impatience isn't a good trait for a ninja. But first some ground rules. Until I permit you to do so, you're not to practise any seal on your own. You'll get homework, but any proper seals would be made under my guidance. Is that clear?"

You nodded.

"Good, we'll start with storage seals, practical and easy," he said and picked out one set of brush and ink for both of you, along with stripes of paper and stone pebbles.

You followed his steps. Keep in mind your intent with the seal, then channel your chakra.

You had a problem.

"How do I channel chakra?" You asked

"Shouldn't you already know it? Given that you're the next Itachi," he said.

"Head injury," you said and pointed to your head for emphasis. Though you were unsure if he was joking, as you didn't know the curriculum or that you should actually have learnt it by now.

"Right, this is not exactly my field. At a certain level, you just do it without thinking, so I might be a bit rusty at teaching it. But I want you to meditate and see if you can feel a source of energy within you."

You got into one of the positions you remembered from the anime, close your eyes and empty your thoughts.

Slowly, something began to flare up around the stomach area. You began to tug a bit at it and draw at it, pulling it through your limbs and to your fingers. It was a strange feeling. Kind of like getting contrast agents at the hospital. Just nicer and less of the needing to pee feeling.

"I can feel it and I can pull it through your body," you told Genma.

"Good, but that's just expected of someone like you. Most kids, even Sasuke can't form chakra this age. Too little control, too little chakra to draw on."

"So I knew it already, I had just forgotten like everything else?"

"Yes," Genma replied.

"You're putting too many expectations in me. I'm only six, just because I'm a quick learner now doesn't mean I'll surpass Itachi's growth. Can we just get on with the sealing?"

Couldn't people get in their head that this was how they created mentally unstable ninja? Always pushing on some unachievable expectations on people that they could never live up to.

At least this would probably end after the Uchiha massacre. They wouldn't want you to snap too, and any Itachi references would be quickly retracted.

Genma got the hint for the rest of that session and stopped the small talk.

You quickly manage to seal the pebbles in your own seals. Of course you did, as you were an Uzumaki, paraphrasing Genma. You hoped Naruto wouldn't hear such words. It would just fuel his anger towards you and that was not part of the plan.

"How does it work?" You asked. Learning how to perform them was something. But you wanted the theory behind them, not just the hand-wavy 'it just works', explanation.

"I don't know exactly, I can make them but I don't understand the theory behind it."

Before you left, you got a strict message about not practice at home. Too teach you patience and not accidentally making any seals.

You wished this world have internet or TV so you had something to do. What would someone like you do? You'd no real homework yet to pour-over.

Best you could do was to explore the village. And it wasn't that interesting when you got another look at it. As the clan hideout, or compounds as they called it was off-limits.

If there was one thing this village had a lot of, it was trees you noticed.

Tree walking…

Increased chakra control and a handy skill. That would be a project for the coming weeks. Even if it would take you a month now. You'd get it fifty percentage earlier in life than if you learnt it at a random mission to wave.

You still had a kunai on you, so you could mark your progress up the tree. Why did they give six-year-olds these to bring home anyway? Or had you accidentally taken it with you back home from the academy without permission. It didn't matter, you weren't going to go back and hand it back if that was the case.

You didn't need any Sakura to provide you with handy exposition or a lazy teacher not teaching. All you needed to do was to put your foot towards the tree and feel for it.

Too much chakra and you'd be pushed off, and too little chakra and you didn't get traction.

How did this make any sense?

Too much chakra and you destroyed the tree. So you should really pick something more solid. The Hokage tower seemed sturdy, but you'd get in a lot of problems if you ended up blowing holes in it. Besides, the ninja keeping guard wouldn't just let you casually walk up and down all day.

So it had to be the tree.

You'd just need to push chakra into your feet till the tree explode to get a feel for it, rather than trying mindlessly to find a middle ground without knowing the limits.

But it was harder than you expected. You did reach the limit point a few time, but you didn't manage to get a stable output. You tried putting less chakra into it each time it blew up, but random spikes made you lose control. Till you got to a point where you didn't lose control, but you couldn't stick to it either.

So that plan failed spectacularly.

It wasn't the only thing you did wrong you realized. When talking up trees, you don't keep your grip constant, you turn it on and off. Perhaps that would make it easier.

That means actually gaining height. and heights weren't your favourite. You could hope that this kid you stole the body from was braver than you.

The faster you ran up, the less you needed to stick at the time. This was the exact opposite of your first plan. You wanted a controlled slow pace, not running up like a madman.

At least the ground was soft enough, you hoped.

And ninja was sturdy, and even if you fell down badly, you'd be just hospitalised and then you'd be fine. Getting hurt was part of the job, better get used to it earlier than later.

You took a deep breath and prepared for your first real attempt.

Step up and that was it. But your timing was off and you applied chakra before you made contact with your other foot. Thus repelling away the trunk instead, flipping you over so you landed with your butt up on the ground.

This was going to be a long month.

And after several hours, all you had to show for was two steps and your stomach was rumbling. The sky had also gotten a lot darker.

You didn't feel like cooking. You were tired and your body hurt.

Though you should have some pocket money. A bowl of ramen would taste nice.

So you talked towards Teuchi's stand trying to remember the way, and it was surprisingly easy. You blamed your Uzumaki genes trying to lead you to there.

When you got there you were the only customer. Probably not the most popular time at day for ramen. But you weren't there for the company but rather to eat. You ordered a simple bowl of ramen and started wondering about your life a bit more.

What had really happened to you? And would it really matter? Trying to escape this place seemed fruitless, you were best off just making the best of it. And if you could keep stuff up, maybe you could be someone of importance in this world. Or you just ended up dead.

Before your pessimism could take overhand, Teuchi served you a bowl of hot steaming ramen.

Food tasted so good when you were exhausted, but it was perhaps not a good idea to train on an empty stomach every day.

"Hey old man!" A childish voice shouting behind you, Naruto. But he stopped when he saw the red mop of your hair. As you turned your head towards him, he was already running away.

You really needed to apologize to him tomorrow.

-x-

Iruka's class was soon over, and you prepared to steel your nerves.

He's just a six-year-old you told to yourself. But your brain did its effort to make you nervous. You were still human, and your human brain currently cared about what your classmates thought about you, even if neither you or the previous you would admit it.

The moment your teacher called off the class you stepped up to Naruto's desk.

"Hi, I just want to apologize for what I've done. I don't remember anything, got my head hit hard," you said and pointed to said head for emphasis. "But I regret bullying you and you are a real Uzumaki, your yellow hair doesn't matter."

A light began to shine within Naruto it looked like.

"Does that mean you'll be my friend?" He asked, with way too much hope in his voice.

"No," you said. "I don't need friends."

In a way to say it's not you, it's me. But it was both. Both the age difference, not tampering with his character development, and the fact that you had widely different interest. He liked pranking people and you liked browsing the internet mindlessly all day.

"But we're family, both Uzumaki," he cried out. Getting the attention of your other classmates.

But it didn't worry you that much. That they would look at you as stone-cold would just make things easier for you.

You just walked away and out in the fresh air. You had apologized, Naruto couldn't expect more. And why he wanted to be friends with his previous bully was beyond you. He needed to see past the blood and rather form friendships on a meaningful basis. Neji and Hinata was a perfect example of how people didn't get along just because they were close relatives. And you had no idea how closely related you and Naruto was. And if you were closely related, someone would probably have told you two.

At the end of the day, it was practical ninja training as usual. And your first spar.

You had really no idea how to fight. So you hoped your instincts would help you out here. From what everyone had told you, you should win this. Even if you were against Sasuke.

You weren't exactly sure what the common greetings were in before the spar. All you could remember about that part was Naruto ignoring it. But you just copied Sasuke and stayed happy with that.

The spar itself was the art of ' _My body just moved of itself'_. And ended with a grumpy Sasuke on the ground with you victorious.

You should find a way to practise sparring so you could actually consciously do it and not just move. But you had years of sparring practise in front of you. And by time, the teachers would probably teach you new moves and techniques.

Now it seemed like getting students used to fighting was the priorities for the teachers. Not exactly how most schools handled things, but you were ninja.

You didn't care much for the other fights. It was kind of pathetic, and your fight was probably the same too. But you were a bunch of children, the skill levels wouldn't be that high anyway. In a year or two, even the worst of you would be better than the strongest now.

After that, it was more lessons with Genma.

"Today we're going be sealing bigger stuff," he explained.

"What's the difference?" You asked trying to learn something and not just monkey see, monkey do.

"You require more chakra or more advanced seals if you want to store bigger more massive items."

That made sense. 'Why though?' was your question. Why couldn't you get a proper indebt explanation and not just an oversimplification for children?

"I heard your apology to Naruto didn't go so well, what happened?" He asked you.

Couldn't he just focus on the lesson?

"Nothing went wrong, he seemed to forgive me. That he wants to be my friend is not my problem," you replied.

"Don't you feel you need friends?" he asked.

"No," you grunted and starring him directly in the eyes. Hoping he would end this.

"Is anything bothering you?" He asked.

"There is a jounin that keeps on bothering me," you grunted even harder.

He looked a bit upset. Couldn't he just stop being a caring teacher and just teach. It was almost like he was keeping tabs on you. Though why would he do that? No, he was just nosy.

In the end, it was another easy lesson and you successfully managed to both seal and unseal the blunt kunai he had brought with him.

-x-

Then you had another date with that damn tree.

Life was going to get quite repetitive from here. You really needed a friend, but the only other person in your situation was Yagura, and you couldn't imagine you two being friends anytime soon.

And just because you were both adults trapped in a child's body didn't mean you had anything else in common. And you would grow up one day, he wouldn't.

You kind of wanted to save him somehow. He was not vital for the canon plotline to continue, so fair game and he'd be a valuable ally. The 4th war would probably need to happen to unite the five villages against a common enemy. But that could be done even if Obito never managed to collect all nine Jinchuuriki.

Obito should try Isekai himself into Pokemon, then he could catch monsters all day and no one would blame him for "Gonna Catch 'em All".

Days became weeks and weeks became a month.

And all the effort culminated in you running up the tree trunk with no issue. And as you were standing on top of the tall tree looking over the village you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. But anyone else would just say it was just what they expected from a prodigy like you.

Genma had also promised you to start teaching you explosive seals tomorrow. It went too slow with him. But he had insisted on seeing you complete more copying exercises along with ensuring your storage seals was flawless before he let you near something more dangerous. It didn't help that he still refused to let you practise seals on your own. But at least you were allowed to do calligraphy, and you'd gotten surprisingly good at replicating all the symbols Genma had given you and you were becoming faster and faster.

The chore of each day began to be somewhat comforting, and seeing your improved skills made you happy. And you were just one month in. Still calling you a prodigy was nothing more than an empty attempt to bloat your ego and bring everyone else down.

"Good work," came a voice from below.

Looking down you saw a familiar face with a comforting smile. A bit shorter hair than you were used to, but still unmistakably Itachi.

You didn't know how you feel about him. It was just two years till he'd kill his entire clan and leave his brother broken.

"Thanks," you replied. Itachi would probably understand you better, given his prodigy label. Though unlike yours, his reputation was actually deserved.

He leapt up the tree trunk beside you and it wasn't until now you saw him carrying two sticks of Dango, he handed one of them to you.

"Thanks, Itachi," you replied. "I'm starving."

"You're Sota, right. Do Sasuke talk about me?" he asked.

"We don't talk to each other" you stated.

"I'm surprised, he complains about you a lot."

"Oh," you said, taken by surprise.

"He tells me that you're beating him in everything," Itachi said.

"I'm just doing my best, I'm not trying to beat anyone," you said. Competing against young kids gave you no pleasure. Why did you have to start this young, rather than at a time where you could feel you belong more. Six years later would probably be nicer, you would still be an adult in a child's body, just a bit older child. Add to that fewer worries to worry about and fewer chances to mess things up.

It might just be easier to become a child again.

Next to you was the catalyst for many future events. But you couldn't see the killer you associated with him. Only an adorable Itachi trying to make friends with you.

It was a friendship that could only last two years.

You gave him your smile. No reason to push away this one. He could probably give you some advice for the future too.

"Let us spar," he stated abruptly.

"Up here?" You questioned. It was a bit of a fall, but Itachi wouldn't have asked is it was dangerous.

He nodded and grinned towards you.

You didn't remember this part from Kakashi's tree walking training. But you took the challenge and let your body move you into a fighting stance and keeping the focus on your grip.

But it didn't last long. And you didn't get a hit in, because the first thing Itachi did was to break off the branch you were standing on by pushing chakra to his feet till it broke.

Which meant you were now falling perhaps 10 meters down which would last you 1.4 seconds before you hit the ground.

But it didn't help that you were falling back first.

There was no time to think only do. Turn around and brace yourself.

He would for sure step in in the last second to catch you. But if not, there was only one thing you could think about. Push as much chakra through your limbs and hope to dampen the fall.

But it didn't help much. As you landed you tried to push off the ground with your arm, but it did nothing, and a crushing sound filled your ears along with immense pain in your arm. Along with the rest of your body.

It was first now that Itachi came to the rescue and pressed his hand against your head. One thing you were certain of was that you were grateful for how simple pain medication was in this world.

Though it wasn't getting rid of all pain, it did turn it from unbearable to manageable.

"Did you try to kill me?!" You raged at him.

"My Jounin-sensei did the same thing towards me when I first successfully managed to walk up a tree. And I was a bit worse off than just a broken arm and a sprained leg. Father was furious about it. But it's a good lesson in acting quickly in a tense situation, and to never fight on unsafe ground," Itachi explained and picked you up.

"I guess I'm going to thank you then Itachi-senpai. And since I'm an orphan you don't have to worry about my parents," you said and smiled at him.

He wasn't trying to harm you, just make you grow and impart the lesson onto you that was imparted onto him. It was a bit extreme but well-meaning.

As he was carrying you to the hospital, it was clear to you that you had made your first friend here. And perhaps you should nudge Itachi away from the path he was fated to follow.


	2. Chapter 2

After staying a night at the hospital you discovered why Naruto hated hospitals. Life in this world was boring enough, and there was even less to do here while bedridden.

But not long after waking up, you heard the voice of Itachi greeting you with a "Good morning."

"Morning," you replied and smiled at him.

He had with him another two sticks of dango and handed you one of them. You were glad you had one working hand so he didn't have to feed you. You could easily imagine Sasuke taking revenge on you for that one alone.

What was it about you that made Itachi want to make friends with you? It made little sense. He could be spending his valuable time with Sasuke instead of being here.

But it would be stupid and embarrassing to just ask him directly. And it would just push him away.

"How do you feel?" He asked.

"Much better. You know, be careful about giving me dango when visiting me, I might just get hurt on purpose to get more of it for free."

You could see a smile forming on Itachi's face.

"So when will they let you out?" He asked.

"In the evening, so I won't be stuck here for long. But I still have to wear a sling for some days."

"Injuries is some of the worst parts of being a ninja, you start to feel useless. We get praised for our ability as a ninja, so if you can no longer perform your duty, you stop valuing yourself," he said.

"I didn't see it like that, I'm sorry."

"There is no virtue in that way of thinking. Don't try to be the ideal ninja Sota, be you."

"I'll try."

"And I'll be here making sure both you and Sasuke succeed."

"Thanks. I just wish I could go back to learning fuuinjutsu. But it's just a waste of Genma's time to have lessons with me in this state. Can't medical jutsu help heal stuff faster?" You asked

"You would think so, but while it can help to fix your physical damages, it makes healing the chakra network slower. So if you can heal normally, you recover quicker. But sometimes you cannot afford to wait."

"Oh, makes sense," you said.

"Do you look forward to being back at the academy then?"

"No one would notice I was even gone," you said.

"You sure about it?"

-x-

Next day it was time to go back to the Academy.

"Welcome back Sota, I'm glad to see you back already, we've all been worried about you," Iruka greeted you

Though looking at the class everyone was busy with something else and not one eye on you and your broken arm.

"Thanks," you said and sat down at your desk as usual.

If it was Sasuke all the girls would have been going up to you all worried. You were glad you weren't Sasuke.

As you took to writing down answers in your workbook you noticed how horrible your handwriting was with your left hand. Its was definitely something you wanted to practise. Becoming a seal master who could only write with one hand was a stupid idea. You'd be useless if someone were to chop off your right hand. You could easily imagine being in Deidara's shoes and getting your hand teleported away, though it wasn't like you had any plans joining Akatsuki. Now that you thought about it, making seals with your feet could be a nice trick. But it would probably never be useful.

After you were done with your Maths and Japanese classes, it was time for sparring.

You watched as the others fought. They seemed to get a bit better now that you had observed a month of progress. It was Kiba against Sasuke today, Wild vs controlled. A tense battle between the two, ending up with a victorious Sasuke and a fuming Kiba.

But when Iruka called up you and Naruto at the end, it was him that objected first.

"Why do I have to fight _him_ ," Naruto complained. "He's injured, I might hurt him. So isn't it a bit unfair?"

Iruka tried to explain. "Sometimes as a ninja, you have to fight even if you have an injury. But since I don't want anyone to get hurt. Don't target his arm, okay Naruto?"

Naruto nodded and turned to you. "Sorry for kicking your ass."

His eyes were hopeful. Getting the chance to beat the top student. And it really looked like he thought he had a chance

You could taunt him with _You've not beaten me yet_ , but what was the point? And you'd just look foolish if you actually lost.

He did the usual greeting, and you to the best of your abilities.

He then charged at you with vigour, but it didn't help much as you easily dodged him as he lacked discipline. He'd probably be more terrifying with some proper guidance, but that wouldn't happen before Jiraiya helped him out.

"Stay still so I can hit you," he yelled at you.

You ignored his taunts and just kept your focus on him. And next time he charged at you, you grabbed the back of his shirt and throw him to the ground using his own forward momentum to help you out.

It didn't talk long before he was on the ground.

It was just the result everyone expected. Not even against an injured opponent did anyone believe in the boy.

But unlike Itachi, everything would turn out right with Naruto. So still no reason to intervene.

-x-

There was no Genma today either, you started to miss the guy. Even if his questioning was annoying. People tended to dig into your life too much.

Your arm felt fine already. You just wanted to rip off the sling and start using your body again.

Though before you could go against medical advice. Itachi was there along with Sasuke.

"Hi, Sota. Mother wanted me to invite you to dinner as an apology for what happened," Itachi said.

Sasuke mumbled something to Itachi that you couldn't hear, and you couldn't hear what Itachi said either. He didn't look very happy.

"You know, you don't need to apologize," you replied back.

"It will make her happy," Itachi said.

-x-

And that's how you were now on the dinner table of the Uchiha patriarch.

Sasuke was glaring at you, Fugaku too. Mikoto was smiling as she put the food on the table. And you were sure Itachi had realized the same as you, this was a horrible idea.

"So how you did you two become friends," Mikoto asked to break the ice.

"I saw him trying to run up a tree day after day, so since he was alone, I figured out I'd be there to congratulate him when he mastered it," Itachi explained.

It was too early to call yourself friends at the moment, but if it made his mother happy to hear you wouldn't stop Itachi describing you as friends.

"Then you had him fall from the tree, doesn't look like he handled it well," Fugaku said and looked at your sling.

"Fugaku," Mikoto scolded him.

"Father, I was in the hospital for much longer and I was older," Itachi stated.

"Can you teach me tree-walking too?" Sasuke asked Itachi before going back to glaring at you.

"You're not ready Sasuke, I'll do it when you're stronger," he replied.

"Itachi," Fugaku signalled. The message was clear, teach him.

"He is not ready yet," Itachi repeated.

"Why don't you two try tomorrow, and if Sasuke makes no progress. You can try again next year," Mikoto said trying to turn down the tension.

"Alright, I'll train you tomorrow Sasuke," Itachi said and smiled to his younger brother.

"He won't be there right?" Sasuke asked.

"You're classmates, shouldn't you try to be friends?" Mikoto asked both of you.

"He always beats my ass and thinks he's better than everyone," Sasuke argued.

"He doesn't want to be my friend, so why would I?" You answered. Why spend time on someone that didn't want you there?

"I'm sure you'll warm up to each other one day," Itachi suggested.

"Maybe," you replied.

Sasuke however. "Never".

He was a lost cause, you didn't understand how Naruto could stand his stubbornness.

-x-

Today's lesson with Genma was going great. You had your first explosive seal in your hand. It was fairly weak, as that was all you were allowed at the moment. But it was the first step into seals with combat potential.

Genma was tying the seal to a string hanging down from the ceiling and backed off a bit from it.

"You can activate it now."

You used your fingers to channel a bit of chakra into it to get it burning. And after what felt like an eternity, it exploded.

**POOF**!

It was like something sparked inside you too and you felt the excitement rising within you.

"Good work, just as expected as always."

Whatever you did, it was nothing more than what people expect from you. If you were Naruto and he was Iruka. He'd take you out for ramen to celebrate. But you being good at something was the same as the sky is blue. Nothing to celebrate.

"Make five more," Genma continued.

It wasn't that hard. But it took you about 10 minutes as Genma would scold you if you rushed it.

Genma took a look at your work. "It's looking good, let me hang them up for you."

One after another about 10-20 cm away from each other.

"Now I want you to activate all of them remotely, in the order that I say.

You focus on the one you want to target, form a snake seal and channel chakra through it. Keep your focus on it till it activates."

You could do this, you folded your hand into a snake and prepared for the signal.

"Four," Genma called out.

"Five"

"One"

"Three"

"Two."

One after another they went off in the order he wanted.

"Can I do this with storage seals too?" You asked.

"Not without modifying the seal I think," he answered.

"How do I do that?" You asked.

"I'm not an expert on this, sorry kid. But there is some modification I can teach you now. Normal storage seals let everyone open it, but with some changes, you can make it so only you can activate it."

"Great, let us start," you cheered on.

"Next time kid," Genma said and tousled your hair. "Fuuinjutsu isn't something you rush, and you've shown great progress today too. I'll be looking into getting a more advanced teacher for you, as you've soon exhausted everything I can teach you."

"Oh, I guess I'll become your senpai soon then," You said, unable to act like a bratty kid for a moment.

"When you've mastered a lot more sealing, I'll call you senpai, once. Deal?" He joked back with you.

-x-

There was nothing else to do today other than training. So after tree walking the choice was obvious. You just needed some water. And using the hot springs didn't tempt you at all.

Walking around the village gave you nothing.

"Hi Sota, what are you doing?" Itachi greeted you.

"Hi Itachi, I was looking for somewhere to practise water walking." You explained.

"Oh, there is a small lake inside our clan compound you can use. With your progress, you'll beat me to becoming the youngest post-war graduate. Sure you don't want to slow down a bit?" Itachi asked. He was obviously worried for you and he would know that graduating early wasn't good for a child's mind. But you were no real kid.

"I see no point in waiting, learning is fun, and I barely learn anything at the academy. You're just afraid I'll beat your record." You teased him with that last bit.

"I was wondering if you wanted a round of sparring? I have a useful exercise I'll want to show you. It will probably be useful for walking on water too." Itachi asked.

"As long as it won't end with me with a broken arm," you replied.

"Don't worry."

-x-

You were standing in their family Dojo waiting for Itachi to grab some stuff. Though he was soon back.

"A rope?" you questioned. "What's that for?"

Itachi didn't reply, just got behind you and tied your wrist together.

"Hey!" You called out, but he didn't stop. Both of you were currently too young for ropeplay, so you hope he didn't have that in mind.

"What would happen if you got attacked while your arms were injured?" He asked.

"I…"

"You'd lose," he said.

"I could just run away, why would I fight?" You asked.

"What if you were a Jounin-sensei with three Genin with you?" He asked.

"I would have to fight them with my legs only?" You suggested.

"Exactly, and it will help you with balance. Let's start," Itachi signalled.

Your move-set was shallow. Duck, kick, wait and move around.

Right away Itachi's charged at you ready to strike. Your instinct told you to duck and that did avoid the hit. But Itachi followed up with grappling your body and throw you into the ground back first.

He was not joking around.

You rolled around so you could get on your knees and get up, but as you did it, Itachi kicked you down again.

"Your enemy won't be nice to you and let you get up. If they want you alive, they'd tie the rest of you up leaving you with no chance of escaping," Itachi explained.

"How often does that happen?"

"Depends really, many missing-nin would be trying to get some money out of you by trading you back with the village. And in case of war, take you as a prisoner to trade when the war is over or try to extract information out of you.."

"Doesn't sound that reassuring," you replied. _Extract information_ was a nice euphemism

So you needed to attack and get up in one move…

Wait, you forgot two things, two forgotten moves.

You rolled away from Itachi towards the wall and then running up. He didn't approach you, just let you jump down and land on your feet again.

"Smart thinking," he replied.

"Did your sensei do the same towards you?" You asked.

"Kind of, instead of tying my hands, he blindfolded me. Your hands will probably be your strongest weapon, but as an Uchiha, denying me of the sight would cause me the most problems.

"Did you win?" You asked.

"No, and he kept me going till I couldn't stand. So we're going to do the same," he said and charged at you again.

You tried dodging him but he quickly turned around and hit you with a well-placed kick.

This just kept on going for hours. You wanted to try Itachi-walking, but he moved too fast for you. Another idea was trying to grab his hand while he was blocking your kick, but he just used chakra to push you away.

Until you couldn't manage it anymore and just lay there on the ground till Itachi spoke up.

"Tired?"

"No, I feel I can go on all day." It was true, but, "it's just that whatever I do, nothing works."

"Sasuke feels the same fighting you," Itachi said. Not sure what he wanted you to do with that information.

"I started training before you were born, it would be strange if I couldn't counter everything you could come up within a few hours."

"You're right. Why are you training me and not Sasuke?" You asked. From what you remember it seemed like Sasuke and Itachi didn't spend as much time as Sasuke would have wanted.

"I'm training him right now, he's mostly sparring against you in the academy, so if you're stronger he'll get tougher opposition," Itachi explained.

Did make some sense, but not much. Wouldn't it be better to just train Sasuke directly?

"I see myself in you. Though unlike me, there is no clan pressuring you. So why do this, are you ready for what will happen after graduation? Life will change a lot."

"All I do is training, and by time, I'll just drift further and further away from my classmates. So why stay in the academy?"

"You don't need to train all the time, you're still a kid, no one will call you out for taking life slower," Itachi said.

You were not really a kid and you didn't want to stay in a class with young children you could never connect to.

"I'm sure, the earlier the better," you said.

"Then I'll help you," Itachi said.

"Why?" You asked.

"I shouldn't say this. But I don't really want you in Sasuke's class. Father is expecting him to be the top student, and he'll never feel good about himself till then. But that won't happen till you graduate," he said.

"Then let's go for it," you said.

"Hi Itachi its soon dinner," Mikoto said from the door before noticing you on the floor. "Oh hi Sota, you want to eat with us today?"

"I don't think Sasuke will like it," you replied.

"Don't worry about Sasuke, he'll just have to accept that Itachi has guests over."

"Then I accept your offer. It's nice of you," you replied.

"Now untie him Itachi, and take a shower boys. You smell," Mikoto said and left you.

"Are you sore?" Itachi asked as he untied your wrists.

"A bit, but it's okay," you said.

Itachi took a closer look at your wrist. "I shouldn't have kept you like this for this long. Now let's go and get clean."

-x-

The feeling of warm water flowing down your body was always nice after a long exercise session.

As you dried yourself dry with a quite large bath towel. You just realized something.

"I've nothing clean to change into here," you told Itachi.

"That's fine, we've something you can borrow. As long as you don't mind the Uchiha emblem on your clothes."

"That's fine," you replied.

Someone from another clan might have declined and gone home for a change of clothes, but clan politics didn't bother you. The Uzumaki was practically gone. And the clothes were much softer and nicer than your own. Too bad you couldn't run away with them, as it would be quite obvious that you'd stolen them.

The smell of Mikoto's cooking was wonderful. Maybe you should marry Itachi just for the family dinners. Just wait some years and he'd be old enough for you, and you old enough for him.

But they'd be dead in two years if you couldn't think of something to do. Smarter than people than you had tried but failed. And uncareful meddling could put the village in the middle of a civil war.

And today as the other time. Sasuke was glaring at you with the dinner table. Fugaku was being friendlier today, as much as a man with a constant frown could.

Itachi began telling the rest about your training and Sasuke just glared harder at you.

"Why are you training him and not me?" Sasuke called out.

"Sasuke…" Itachi said.

"Do better in the academy and he'll teach you," Fugaku interrupted.

"You said you were going to train me today but we barely did anything," Sasuke said.

"You don't have enough chakra yet Sasuke, there was nothing I could do to help you with the exercise," Itachi explained.

Itachi was right, you should hurry up and graduate. You should let Sasuke go back to being the boy he was in canon. Top of his class that everyone admired, without you there to feed his inferiority complex along with his father reinforcing it.

"I can train with you later if you help me with the dishes Sasuke," Mikoto offered.

"But I want to train with nii-san, but that bastard is stealing him from me," Sasuke complained and pointed at you.

"Sasuke, be nice," Mikoto told him.

"It's not fair," he complained again.

"So you don't want to train with me?" Mikoto asked.

"Help me beat that asshole mom," Sasuke said.

"Language Sasuke," she replied.

-x-

You and Itachi were back outside a bit away from his home. Better get some distance from small angry Sasuke.

And you were currently overseeing the lake Itachi was talking about.

"I'm going on a mission tomorrow, so I'm going to be gone for a bit. So what do you want to do, water-walking or starting on the jutsu you need for graduation."

"I can learn water-walking later, I'll start with the jutsu."

"You know what they are?"

"Replacement, henge and clone," you said.

"Good, we'll start with the henge, it's the easiest."

After a few hours of practice. You realized that easiest didn't mean easy. It was still hard. But you had some time practising in the week Itachi was gone and hopefully, you could show him some progress when he was back.

It was time to go come. And by 'go home' you meant to run as your short legs made walking take forever.

It was a miracle that you didn't run into someone on the way home. But you did it. You grabbed a piece of bread and laid down on your bed taking eating bits of it and it didn't take long before you drifted to sleep.

-x-

You missed Itachi already, it had only been a few days and you wanted some company back. And Genma was done with his final lesson. This wasn't a new problem for you, in your old life you struggled hard with friends too. And then your classmates had been around your age mentally too. Sasuke was probably just saying what the rest of the class was thinking.

You wished you could just lie down on your desk forever. Things would probably get better once you'd become genin. But what if they didn't?

You just tuned out everything around and didn't hear someone talk to you.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I had to help an old woman with her cat."

You didn't notice anything before you felt two fingers on your neck. You turned around to see a quite recognizable cyclops. One that was a lot friendlier than Danzo.

"I just needed to check if you were dead," Kakashi said. "Follow me outside."

You got up, at least learning stuff could get your minds on other stuff.

"So what do you want to learn?" Kakashi asked.

You didn't exactly know.

"Do you have any ideas?" You asked him.

"Think about it," Kakashi replied and started reading his book.

Great, still a shitty teacher who didn't really want to teach.

You lied down on the ground and closed your eyes.

How were you supposed to know? You had the advantage of knowing things you shouldn't know. But the kid whos the body you occupied would be a lot more clueless.

What was the most terrifying attack?

There was quite a few, but if you were to develop a defence against it, it would be something that could hit you and not kill you for a while, while still giving you no real option to stop it. And there was one Jjsu that fit that description perfectly.

Amaterasu

"I want to be able to seal away nearby fires," you said. As you were pretty sure you could remember something like that from canon.

"Alright, I know that one. It is quite useful for extinguishing house fires. And automatic versions have stopped many Kage from setting fire to their paperwork."

Kakashi preceded as Genma often did and drew it out while you were watching. Though unlike Genma, he gave you no other advice, just asked you to replicate it while he went back to his book.

But you didn't bother arguing with him, as it didn't seem he wanted to be here.

As you copied parts for parts. Your head just nudged you in different directions, where to apply chakra, what to focus on etc.

"Done," you called out as you were done.

He looked at it for a second before talking. "Alright, let us test it. Stand over there," he pointed.

Kakashi stepped to a point perhaps ten meters away.

"To activate it, channel chakra through it as the fire is getting close," he explained.

"What fire?" You asked.

Before you could get an answer, he had sent a fireball heading straight at you.

You took a heavy breath and held it. Praying that it would work. When it was perhaps two meters away you could feel the heat getting uncomfortable and decided it was _close enough_ and channelled chakra through the seal.

It got smaller like being sucked up by a black hole, you could breathe out again. And in the seal, you could see a red spot inside the previously blank circle.

"You knuckleheaded idiot!" Kakashi yelled at you.

"What?" you exclaimed.

"You didn't test it, I barely gave you any instructions on how to make it. What made you think it was safe to use?" Kakashi asked with a stern voice.

"You told me to do it," you said trying to defend yourself. "What did you expect would happen?"

"That you would get hit, then I'd patch you up and hand you over to the hospital. And then I would tell the Hokage you were not ready yet and make you someone else's problem," Kakashi said.

You didn't know how to react.

"Why do you hate me?" you said.

Before falling onto your knees and started to sob. You didn't want to, you wanted to be strong. You weren't a crying weak child, so why? This along with not seeing Itachi for a few days just made everything spill over for you.

As your body started to feel weird you rolled over to the side to lie down.

"I'm a sorry kid, I don't hate you. I just don't want to do this. I don't like children and I'm not suited for teaching. Go home and get some rest, we'll continue tomorrow," he said and walked away.

You didn't want to move. And there was no one to go home to. So you could just as well stay on the ground. You didn't even belong in this world. And you were still too stupid for the reality of this world to dawn on you. Why wouldn't you just go home?

Keeping the negativity at bay at this point was impossible. And your head started to hurt and your body was aching.

You didn't know how long you'd lied down on the ground when you heard a faint voice speaking to you.

"Is everything okay?" An unknown voice asked you. You turned around to try to locate them. But everything was a dark blur, you couldn't make out anything around you and you weren't even sure where you were at the moment.

"Who are you?" you mumbled and clutched your own head. Your own voice made everything hurt more.

"Shisui, I'm a friend of Itachi, he's mentioned you."

You clutched your eyes in pain.

"How are you feeling?" he asked you.

"My head hurt when you're talking," you replied with a weak voice.

"Can I carry you home to me so I can give you something to drink and eat?" He whispered.

You nodded before he picked you up in your arms.

-x-

Shisui set you down on a soft mat next to his table. Before getting a glass of water for you you.

You were not strong enough to sit up, but he was nice enough to set the glass on the floor and guided a straw into your mouth so you could drink.

You didn't manage to drink much. Water wasn't very good when you were nauseated like this and your head was hammering.

The sound of boiling water just hurt you even more.

It just kept on as a hurtful white noise as you twist and trashes around on your mat while grasping to your head.

The boiling water eventually slowed down to a halt and made you feel much calmer.

You could see him put something on the table through your blurry eyes.

"What's wrong, kid?" he said as he sat down beside you and stroke your hair.

"I'm lonely," you said with slurred words.

"Just wait a bit for the tea to cool down and try drinking some more water."

You tried taking some more sips but it was just awful.

It was hard to keep track of time, but soon the tea was cold enough for you to drink.

Shisui helped you sit up by supporting your back with his hand and put the cup up to your mouth. You were kind of shivering at this point.

"Try small sips, its good for you," he said.

It felt quite nice in your mouth, and as you swallowed more and more things started to feel better. It was perhaps half empty when you feel strong enough to hold the cup with your own fingers.

"Thanks," you mumbled back.

"I'm not good enough at medical jutsu, so I've to do other ways," he said.

As you empty the cup, you were much better. But still didn't feel completely okay. And before you could put it on the table, Shusui grabbed it from your hand and went to refill it.

"So what are you doing for fun?" Shisui asked as he handed you your cup.

"I hang out with Itachi," you replied before grabbing the cup and started sipping.

"And what you do together?" He asked.

"We tend to spar and he's helping me prepare for graduation."

"Apart from that, to relax or just have fun?" He asked.

"All I do is to tend the academy, fuuinjutsu lessons, training, eating and sleeping."

"You should take it slower. You're even worse than Itachi was at this age. You're not supposed to burn out before you even graduate" Shisui said.

"I've nothing else do to. So training is a nice way to pass time."

"Play with friends, get a hobby. Normal things kids your age do?"

"Itachi isn't playing around all day. And sealing is a nice hobby."

"Something that isn't ninja related perhaps? You don't know what Itachi is doing when he's alone. And Sasuke still plays with his plush dinosaur," Shisui said.

"I'm not Itachi or Sasuke," you replied.

"So why are you acting like…" Shisui stopped himself. "I'm just trying to stop you from doing something stupid."

"Itachi believes in me," you argued.

"Itachi is a stupid kid too," he said while moving towards his fridge.

"Aren't you two friends?" You asked.

"That's why I'm calling him stupid, I know him," Shisui said and brought out two sticks of dango and handed you one of them. "He also told me you loved these."

Naruto had his ramen, and you'd got officially addicted to these balls of goodliness.

Shisui was another tragic case, and you started to feel bad for him. Picturing the smiling man beside you getting his eyes ripped out made you shudder.

You couldn't save everyone, but you could try doing something here too. Saving his entire clan seemed impossible. But adding an extra surviving Uchiha should be feasible.

"So what happened earlier today?"

"Kakashi," you replied in between your bites from the dango. "He's helping me get better at seals. But he's not a very good teacher."

Shisui raised a questioning eyebrow, prompting you to tell the whole story.

After you were done, Shisui was left to ponder about it for a moment.

"He's what happens when you push a kid like you through war too early. Do you plan on trying to find someone else instead?" He finally asked.

You shook your head. "He's the only thing I've got at the moment. I'm just lucky they have bothered with finding anyone to teach me as I'm no one special."

"You're an Uzumaki, that makes you special. An Uzumaki who's proficient enough at sealing could make Madara piss his pants."

"Naruto is an Uzumaki too, and no one bothers to teach him anything. And he's actually special," you said.

Shisui looked at you a bit confused.

"I know about his furry little problem," you explained.

"I hope you know that you're not supposed to tell anyone right, not even Naruto himself?" He asked you.

"I know."

"Then you know that his furry little problem isn't helping him any. People don't want to help him as they see him as the fox," he explained.

"It just doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't you ensure your only Jinchuuriki would get all the help they needed?" You asked.

"You'll quickly learn that the world doesn't make much sense."

Why couldn't the world make sense? You sighed in frustration.

"Do you want to stay over for the night?" He asked you.

You shook your head. "I need to get some more training today."

"It's night outside, you should not be out training. You don't need to stay here, but you should be resting some more" he said.

"And if I don't?" You questioned.

"Then I'll show you how I got my reputation within genjutsu," Shisui threatened you with a smirk.

"I'll just stay here then, nothing to do at home."

"If I can borrow your keys, I can go back and get the stuff you need."

"I don't want to be an even bigger bother," you said.

"I'm the fastest Uchiha, you won't even notice I'm gone," he said.

You threw him the keys and he caught them with a smile. There was no point protesting with him. Why was everyone so nice with you, what did they really want?

While you were waiting for him to come back you noticed another furry fellow. An adorable black and white cat jumped onto your lap, wanting to get petted.

There was no way you could say no to them, so you started to stroke them and let them play with your hand.

"I see you've meet Sasuke," Shisui said as he appeared in front of you with some of your stuff under his arm.

"You named him Sasuke?" You questioned with a raised brow.

"Itachi liked him a lot as a kitten, so I decided to name him of another thing Itachi loved," he explained.

"He's much cuter than the original, Sasuke just glares at me whenever he sees me."

"Itachi's brother is a bit like a cat sometimes. Are you tired? "

"No, I've been out for most of the day, so I'm not able to sleep now."

"Then I'll stay up with you. How about we play some cards, do you know how to play Shogun?" He asked.

"Could you teach me?" You asked.

It was a mix of Bluff and some deck-building game. The card was quite interesting. The leaf on one side wasn't so spectacular, but the picture card was more unconventional. Hiruzen as the Ace, with the Sannin as the King, Queen and Jack. It would have to be a few years old for Orochimaru to be present after everything he did. Better handle them with care.

After a few hours, you began to get really tired.

A big _Nyaaawn_ came from your mouth against your will and you quickly covered your mouth to avoid any other accidents.

"Don't be ashamed of that, you're allowed to be cute," he said.

"I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed. I'm not a cat," you replied.

It was nice to relax a bit. But you were also falling behind on training. So no breaks tomorrow. You just had to carry through.

As you were brushing your teeth, the flowing water reminded you of something. Waterwalking. It was something you'd put on the delay with Itachi.

"Shisui, do you think you can help me with something tomorrow?" You asked.

"I don't have any missions tomorrow, so I might be able to spare some time, what is it?"

"I want to practice water walking. I was planning to do to it with Itachi, but things happened. And I can't be using the lake here in the compound if I'm by myself."

"You can swim, right?"

"I think so…" you said "... I don't really know, but how hard can it be?"

"I think I should be able to help. I'll tell the guards to let you in tomorrow after you've had your lesson with Kakashi."

"Thanks," you said.

-x-'

Next morning, you felt stronger than ever. You regretfully had to say that Shisui was right about making you rest, he had even let you sleep through the school day.

Kakashi seemed a bit surprised by how much life was in you today compared to yesterday. But he didn't say anything, hence the seemed.

"I hope you've learnt from yesterday, just because everything went well, didn't mean you weren't an idiot," he told you.

"I've learnt. I'm not going to depend on any of my seals untested again," you replied.

"Good, remember that. There might be times where you don't have the choice to test it. But that's not an excuse to neglect it when you can."

"I get it," you replied.

"Now that's out of the way. What do you want to do today?"

"I want to learn how to modify seals to change their behaviour and better learn how they really work," you said.

"I can help you there, so what were you thinking off?" He asked.

"Explosive seals, making them bigger and stronger," you replied.

"I think it's best if I just explain every part of the seal first and then we can move onto changes. Sounds good?"

You nodded.

After a lengthy explanation of every aspect of the seal, supplemented by your brain making mental corrections whenever something in his explanation felt off. You feelt a lot smarter.

The way to modify seals could simply be boiled down to either adjusting the size of the entire seal, individual parts or exchanging parts with similar parts from other seals you know, but that did a different job.

So that would mean that replacing parts of fire absorption with other seals, you could absorb other things.

You looked up at his mask and gave it a big evil grin.

"What are you looking at?"

"Just your face, I like it," you said.

He just looked weirdly at you. Did he get that you were up to no good?

"Would it be okay if I practised on my own?" You asked. "Genma wouldn't allow me."

Kakashi thought about it for what felt like an eternity. And you looked at him with a tense expression.

"You'll never learn without practising. But remember what I said earlier. Don't depend on untested seals. Don't do anything indoors or near other people. And when dealing with anything dangerous. Try figuring out what you think is a safe distance and double it," he said. "Got it?"

"Yes," you said and smiled at him. "Thank you Kakashi-sensei."

"Don't make me regret it," he said.

"So can we go through the storing seal and fire absorption seal too?" You asked.

"Sure, the sooner I'll get rid of you."

"Love you too sensei," you said to him with a big smile.

"Don't make this weird or I'm leaving you."

"Sorry, just continue with the lesson."

You should really take notes, but from your experience with Genma, this kind of stuff just stuck to your brain like a parasite.

As he finished his explanation you just wanted to go home. And enact your master plan and channel your inner Uzumaki.

"Thanks for today," you said and ran off.

-x-

On the way home, you had bought with you some paper, ink, needle, thread and a small roll of cloth. The later was kind of a waste, but they weren't willing to sell you just the piece you needed.

Your sewing wasn't perfect, but it didn't have to be. You just needed it for testing.

You just had to look up the necessary kanji in your dictionary. If you were right, replacing the fire or whatever with what you wanted to absorb would do the trick. Kakashi won't know what hits him.

You were shaking of excitement as you were drawing it out to the point where you needed to keep your hand steady.

There were some other things you had do to make the seal work. It wasn't just to replace the word and be done with it. But you heard faint whispers in your head telling you how to fix it. Simply adding a few more words and connections.

You ignored Kakashi's advice about trying it outside, it wouldn't harm anyone.

And as you activated it, you knew you had done it. Your first original seal.

-x-

You wanted to skip today's academy lessons, but sadly Kakashi wouldn't come sooner that way. So Iruka's lesson was the only option. You weren't going to skip class for no good reason.

"What's up with you today Sota, you look like Naruto when he's going to prank someone," he said.

"Wah?" You exclaimed.

"You're smiling, that's not you. But it suits you. You should smile more, it will help you make friends," he said.

You smiled with Itachi, didn't you? And with Shisui the other day? Hope so, or you're the worlds worst six-year-old.

So if you smiled people though you were up to no good. And if you didn't smile people though you were unfriendly.

There was no winning here. Sure you were actually up to no good today. But that wasn't the point.

-x-

"I don't like the look for your face," was the first thing Kakashi said when he saw you later that day. "Smiling doesn't suit you."

It was clear why Team 7 hated that man at first. But he softened up to them by time, but that was six years in the future. This Kakashi was too deep into ANBU and was clearly not interested in doing this with you.

So to make him happy, you stopped looking like you were happy to be there.

"So any wishes for today?" He asked you.

"I wanted to show you something I practised yesterday. I've tested it,"

"What does it do?" He asked you.

"It's a surprise," you answered.

"Ninja hate surprises. But go on."

You picked your prepared scroll out of your backpack and ensured to stay close enough to Kakashi for it to take effect.

He took a peek at it while you activated it. And before you had any chance to react, you were on the ground face down with Kakashi holding you down.

"Don't do that again!" He called out and held you there for a moment.

It took a few seconds before his grip loosened. And when you got up, his mask was back on as he picked up your scroll.

Before you could get another word in, he grabbed you by the wrist.

You weren't sure where he was taking you. And if you didn't know better, you'd guess he was a crazy psychopath taking you away to execute you. Everything about his body language told you he was furious. With his speed, it was hard to follow suit and in parts of the way he just dragged you forward.

As you reached the end goal, the Hokage Tower he slowed down. Probably not to be seen dragging an Academy student as he'd just done. But that didn't mean he lost the grip on you.

It wasn't until you entered the Hokage's office that he let you go.

"Kakashi, what are you doing?!" The Hokage yelled at him.

"This kid is nothing but a troublemaker," he said and glared down at you, making you feel uneasy.

"What did Sota here do?" The Hokage questioned.

"He took my mask," Kakashi said, one word at the time.

"Tell me Sota, how does he look under the mask," Hiruzen looked at you.

"I didn't see anything, as soon as I activated the seal he pushed me to the ground and dragged me here."

"That's a creative use of fuuinjutsu, that reminds me of something … could do. Turns that you didn't betray my trust in investments in you," Hiruzen said.

"He betrayed my trust. No one fucks with my mask," Kakashi grunted.

"It's just a mask Kakashi," The Hokage scolded. "He has shown skill and creativity with what you've taught him and you answer with anger and aggression. What kind of teacher are you?"

"I'm no teacher and I hate his hair," he said.

Things really started to unravel for you. You reminded him of Kushina and he hated it. He didn't wish to see a ghost. And it wasn't so much about the mask as some redhead pranking him as Kushina did. You almost felt bad for him. Almost, it still didn't excuse his actions.

"I want you to declare his seal a kinjutsu. It's not just about my own mask, but as it can be easily used to demask ANBU agents, it is a security threat that has no other practical applications than becoming a problem for our ninja," Kakashi argued.

"Let me look at that seal," The Hokage said and Kakashi handed your work to him.

The old Kage took a close look at it.

"Hmm. this isn't a trivial modification, most people would just replace the central symbol and then fail. So how did you fix it, I doubt Kakashi over here was any help?"

Were you going to tell him the truth? Looking at the old man he gave you the icky feeling that he could see straight through you.

"Whispers in my head," you said with a low voice. As you didn't want to announce to the entire tower that you may be crazy.

"Do these whispers say anything else do you?" He asked you.

"Just helping me with sealing, nothing else," you answered.

"Have they appeared in front of you in any form?" He asked.

"No. Why would they?" You asked.

"No reason at all. I may finally have found about your secret," he said.

"My secret?" You stuttered. Did he figure out that you were not really Sota, but just someone yeeted into this world by unexpected means?

"The secret behind the Uzumaki. Voices in your heads, everything makes sense now."

"Shouldn't Naruto experience something similar then?" You asked.

"He's too much of a troublemaker to learn this kind of stuff at the moment. Though time will tell, he might not have this ability due to his yellow hair or he might even be better than you."

So now the Hokage was implying that Naruto might not be a real Uzumaki. People were hypocrites.

"Kakashi, you're continuing this. You can't get out of something you don't like by being a pain in the ass. But I'll grant your request, I'll forbid anyone to make any more copies of this seal, or else you'd probably find a way to make life difficult for me. Think of it as a reward you don't deserve."

He then turned to you again.

"You can go now Sota. You're not in any trouble, just don't make any more forbidden seals will you?"

-x-

"You're early," Shisui greeted you as approached his place.

"Kakashi got mad at me for stealing his mask, so he ended the lesson before we started and dragged me to the Hokage."

"So…" he said.

"I couldn't see anything, the bastard was too quick for me."

"You need to tell me how you did it, I'll pay you back in dango."

"The Hokage forbid me from doing it again under Kakashi's insistence. Should we start?"

"Stop being so impatient kid. You've your whole life in front of you and you're an Uzumaki so you'll probably live till you're 200 years old."

"I'm sorry," you replied. "I just feel I need to be strong to defend myself."

Danzo, Orochimaru, Pain. And any other threat that might come your way.

As Shisui started walking to the lake, he had another lesson for you. "You're still a six-year-old boy. No one expects you to defend the village. The village will protect you until you get strong enough to protect the new generation."

"Why can't people have some trust in me?" You looked up at him.

"Is anything bothering you?" He asked you.

"No," you said. Your body language, however, betrayed you.

"If you change your mind, you can always come to me and talk if you don't want to talk to Itachi about it."

"I will," you replied.

As you were about to step onto the lake, Shisui called out to you.

"Are you sure you want to make your clothes wet?"

He was right, you stripped down to your underwear and stepped back in.

As you put one foot on the surface and pushed chakra through it, it was like stepping on one of those floating devices used to help people learning to swim.

Safe to say, you didn't trust putting more weight on the foot.

So the way to go was to push more chakra into your foot. But that just threw you forward into the water making you wet.

At least the water wasn't so bad. You wondered if the Uchiha used their fire jutsu to warm up the lake to a comfortable temperature or if it was just the weather the last weeks.

Tries after tries, minutes become hours and you made no progress. And you paid no attention to what Shisui was doing on the side.

"Time to call it for the day," he called out to you.

As you stepped out of the water still dripping wet. He was ready with a body towel to dry you off.

"Good work today Sota," he smiled at you and handed you a stick of dango he had kept who knows where.

"I could still go on for longer," you said.

"Maybe, but you're with me today. And I'm not letting you train all day and neglect eating."

You could try to master the pout. But dinner didn't seem too bad really.

-x-

Two days later.

Today would be a boring day, Kakashi had also decided to take a break today. Not that you missed too much. You couldn't call him spending ten minutes yesterday telling you to store and mark your seals properly and then walk away for a lesson.

He did what he needed to do to say he had taught you something. Messing with that man was a huge mistake, as he was much more helpful in the first two days.

As you were exiting the school you felt a hand ruffle your head. You looked up at the offender.

"Itachi," you smiled at him.

"Are you ready for more training?" He asked you.

"Yes, but shouldn't you spend time with Sasuke now that you're back."

"Unlike you, Sasuke isn't hopeless in making friends. He has classmates that seem to like him. He just needs a push."

"I made friends with Shisui," you argued.

"I asked him to watch over you. But he seems to like you kid. He told me what happened with Kakashi, I'm impressed. So have you got any more practising the Henge Jutsu?"

"Yeah. I still feel crap at it."

"Can you show me? Copy into me."

You prepared the hand signs and a mental image of Itachi.

"You're getting better, you just need more practice, but you can do that on your own. I think we should move onto the Replacement Jutsu."

-x-

After a day of jutsu practise, attempts at water-walking, sparring and another tense dinner with the Uchiha. You could say you were a bit tired.

So it wasn't strange that you had a hard time focusing on where you were going. You only had yourself to blame when you bumped into someone and fell down on your butt.

"I'm sorry, I was careless I've been training all day," you said and rubbed your head before you looked up to see who you had offended.

Your eyes widened.

Cane, black robe covering their body. Bandaged head with shaggy black hair sticking up from the top.

Only one man fit that description.

"Danzo"


	3. Chapter 3

His gaze made you freeze in place, unable to stand up. All you could do was the shuttle further back.

"Uzumaki Sota, nice to meet you," Danzo said and looked down at you.

You wanted to run, but your body refused.

"What do you want with me?" You asked, as your mouth was a lot more careless than your body. Your voice, however, was shaking and did nothing to hide your fear.

"You don't have to be afraid of me. I don't want you any harm," he said.

Liar!

"I don't want to join Root," you told him.

Why did you do that? His expression didn't change any, of course it didn't. You needed to stop the shaking. Stop being so stupid Sota, focus. Close your eyes, if you can't see him he wouldn't be there right. Of course not, it was too late to escape the curse of object permanence.

You tried breathing in and out, he wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? None of that mattered. You rolled over onto your knees, opened your eyes and then full speed away from him.

-x-

It was stupid to mention Root, but too late now. You could hope that by mentioning its name, it would discourage him from recruiting you later on. You weren't sure what he'd think. Maybe that the Hokage had warned you or something and he'd take that as a sign that the Hokage would protect you?

But it was you that bumped into him. Maybe he didn't want anything to do with you and you were just overthinking stuff? He wasn't interested in Naruto at this point, so why you? And now you only pissed him off by being rude to him for no reason. But unlike Naruto, you weren't a terrible student so what what was the truth...

Itachi was right, it was stupid of you to progress this fast, and now it was too late to turn around. There were too many eyes on your back to suddenly hold back since if it was something Konoha liked, it was messing up their young prodigies. And if Danzo was seeking you out, you could be the next messed up kid on the list.

-x-

Two things were certain in life as the Hokage. Death and Paperwork. And Hiruzen would quite like a distraction right now.

And the gods seemed to have answered him as he heard familiar knocking on his door.

"Come in," Hiruzen said, despite knowing from the familiar knocks that this wasn't the distraction he was looking for.

Danzo stepped in and locked the door behind him before he sat down in his regular chair beside the Hokage.

"It's about Uzumaki Sota, someone seems to have been feeding him classified information," Danzo said.

"And what classified information should that be?" Hiruzen asked.

"He knows about Root. I think someone is trying to make him fear me," Danzo said.

"You are a quite intimidating person," Hiruzen commented.

"So is Uchiha Fugaku, and the kid doesn't seem affected by that man. He crawled back when he saw me and ran away quickly after telling me ' _I don't want to join Root'._ I want a list of who has been in contact with the boy," Danzo demanded.

Sarutobi went to one of his bookshelves and pulled out a binder before going back to his desk.

"This is all the encounters the boy had the last year, is that sufficient?" He asked Danzo.

"Let me take a look," Danzo replied.

Sarutobi unsealed the lock and handed it to the other man who began to read.

"Lots of meetings with Hatake the last week. What's what about?"

"He has been teaching the kid sealing as he quickly outgrew what Genma could teach him. But Kakashi seems to hate the boy, sure you want to suspect him?" Hiruzen explained.

Danzo continued looking further back in the book.

"There are other potential suspects. You forced me to remove the seal after he left Root, so he'd be free to tell the boy any secrets. Can I see the transcripts of his conversations with Hatake?" Danzo asked.

"There is no reason to give you those, besides he could just have omitted anything incriminating," Sarutobi said.

"But sloppy work could give signs of wrongdoing," Danzo interrupted.

"I'll have someone analyse his reports and then I'll talk to him. You're staying away from Hatake until further notice. You'll not be of any help when you've already made up your decision."

As Danzo was leaving the office, Sarutobi gave him one last warning. "Don't do anything with Sota behind my back."

-x-

One moment you were waiting for Kakashi, another moment you were thrown to the ground before getting your face pushed into the dirt.

"Do you know what kind of problems you've caused me now?" Kakashi crouched down and yelled at you.

"No," you muttered under the weight of the jounin.

"I don't know how you know about Root or why you were stupid enough to mention it to Danzo. But if you dare throw me to the wolves and blame me. You're going to suffer and you will quickly learn that your young age won't protect you."

"That's enough, let him go!" Shisui called out from behind the trees.

As Kakashi lift the pressure you turned towards your new friend. Sharingan ready and sword out.

He really thought Kakashi was going to hurt you. He wasn't really going to, was he? Or was it you that didn't understand the gravity of the situation and just depended too much on non-existent plot armour that you got cocky and arrogant? He wouldn't get away with killing you. But lots of people killed knowing they'd get caught.

He helped you up before addressing Kakashi again. "If you don't go straight to the Hokage and resign as his teacher, I'm going to report this and launch an official police investigation against you. You know perfectly well what my clan thinks about you. Don't give them a chance to take revenge."

Kakashi the ' _Eye Thief'_ walked away, hopefully for the last time, and Shisui turned to you again.

"Let me take a look at you," he told you and rubbed away the dirt from your face.

"Some scratches, but you're not bleeding, so you should be fine."

"Its…" you said before getting interrupted.

"It's not your fault. Kakashi is an adult, one of the best, he should know better."

-x-

In the next weeks, you were on your own when it came to sealing. And it was perhaps for the better. You got a lot done by yourself. You could make stuff faster and than ever and had made neatly labelled boxes to put your stuff in. Small explosives, medium and big ones. All ready for when you became genin. Though the latter might be a bit too dangerous, any teammate could underestimate their effects and someone could get hurt.

The child in you really liked watching stuff blow up. If it wasn't for the fact that Deidara was an Iwa-nin and would join Akatsuki, you could probably have become best friends in the future.

The only Jutsu left mastering of the academy three was the clone. Sasuke and your other classmates had become more and more of a joke as your sparring against Itachi had improved. Only for you to figure out how much he had held back against you.

All in all, life was going great for you.

-x-

Sasuke waited till you had left the classroom for the day before approaching Naruto.

"I need your help," he said to the other boy.

Naruto was smiling towards him as he got some attention. "I'll help," he replied.

"The asshole. He's stealing my Nii-san from me. Help me take revenge." Sasuke said.

"What should we do?" Naruto asked.

"I hoped you had any good idea. You're always pranking people and annoying the adults."

"We could check his room, he's an orphan like me, so he lives alone. But we might get caught."

"Hnn, he's always out training after school, so he won't get back till its dark."

Naruto showed the way for Sasuke as the walked towards your place.

"How do you know where he lives," Sasuke asked.

"I wanted to be his friend when I started the academy so I asked Iruka about were he lived. It didn't go so well," he said turning to Sasuke to expose his red eyes.

Sasuke didn't pay much attention and turned to your door, but it would budge. "We should have stolen his key."

Naruto pushed Sasuke away and stuck something into the lock. After a few seconds of rattling, Naruto could open the door.

"Everyone thinks I'm a loser. But they're wrong," Naruto responded to Sasuke's thoughts.

The two of them looked around in your somewhat messy room. Sasuke's eyes were drawn to your boxes of explosives.

If you wanted revenge, you went big. So he grabbed the last box down from the shelf and looked inside it. There wasn't many in there. But one was enough for Sasuke.

"Come over here Naruto. Look at this," Sasuke said and held out one or your seals.

"What's that?" Naruto asked.

"We put some chakra through it and then it goes BOOM and he'll get scared and piss his pants," Sasuke said and waved for emphasis.

"It's perfect," Naruto replied. "We can take him down and show him that he's not as good as he thinks he is. He'll be fine right? Pranks aren't supposed to hurt people."

"I've seen Itachi using them, they're not that dangerous at distance."

-x-

You were just walking home as you saw a bright flash around you. Followed big a deafening blast and you were shot forward.

Everything hurt. Trying to move anything hurt. Your ears felt like they bleeding. Your mind was all fuzzy. Till all slipped away. Was this the end. Killed in an assassination attempt in your own village?

-x-

You were floating in some kind of water and your body suddenly felt fine again. From the corner of your eye, you could see blue fires lighten up the water.

Was this how death felt like?

Starting in the water of the womb, ending in the water of…

"Are you going to just float there all day boy?" A grand voice called out behind you.

You turned around in the water and saw something you would never expect to see.

"Matatabi…" you stuttered while pointing and the giant cat in the distance. "What are you doing here?"

"Who told you my name?" She asked and flashed her teeth towards you.

"You, I think, I'm not sure. It's a long story."

"For how I got here, didn't your Kage tell you that?" she asked.

"I know, but you're not supposed to be in Konoha, you're supposed to be in Cloud. Into a girl named Yugito. She's not dead is she?"

"I don't know any girl named Yugito. I was previously sealed into an old woman from the Cloud. But we never talked and I don't know happened to them," she said.

"Oh… I'm Uzumaki Sota and I'll try to be a better Jinchuuriki," you said and held your hand out towards here.

"You know, I've been cramped here forever, with all this dreadful water. Can't you help me out a bit, loosen the seal a bit so I can go outside and stretched my feet?" She asked. "I hear that the nature around your village is wonderful."

"I'm not getting tricked so easily, I wasn't born yesterday," you replied.

"You're sorely mistaken. Wouldn't you also want to go out sometimes if you were locked inside a cell for years? You want to be a good Jinchuuriki, but you only want to take my power and not help me back. No wonder you can't make friends kid."

"I…" You tried answering.

No, you're not getting yourself getting guilt-tripped by a giant blue cat who would take revenge on humanity the second she got loose. But guilt still tore on you. You were acting on knowledge you weren't supposed to know about. So your brain is pushing you one direction and your mind another.

If you weren't transported here from the real world with all the memories of canon. Would Sota have given in at this point and doomed Konoha?

No, you needed to address her properly, no reason to be afraid.

"The village has trusted me to keep you contained. I hope we can someday fight together like partners, like friends. But you're not being honest with me. If I remove the seal I die. You're not being a good tailed-beast you know." you said.

"Very well. Sounds like you're too heartless to trick," she replied.

"I'm not heartless!" You yelled back at the stupid cat.

"Then show it!"

"I can scratch your ear?" You offered, cats like that, right?

"You don't deserve to scratch my ear," she roared.

"Then I've nothing. Can I get out now? We can talk later again," you said.

"You almost died. With the power of my chakra, you healed fast enough to not bleed out before medics could save you. But you've been nothing but ungrateful towards me. Without me, this would have ended up with you disfigured and you could just forget about becoming a ninja, but with my help, you'll get out of this without a scratch."

"I'm sorry", you cried out. "Let's talk again another day. Just please stop messing with my head."

"Or what, you'll realize that you're an evil kid and change your ways?"

"No… it's an all a trick. You're trying to trick me," you mumbled. You could get away from her. you just needed to swim away. Ignore her taunts. You'd nothing to say in response. She was right, you were an awful kid.

What if you just let yourself drown. This wasn't a real place, just a place conjured up in your mind. If you passed out here, you could maybe escape? Or at least no one could see you cry underwater.

-x-

You could hear beeping around you. You were safe from Matatabi. You took a deep breath in and then out.

You tried opening your eyes, but only your left eye would obey. Same happened when you tried moving your arms. Moving the left one went fine, moving the right one lead to immense pain. You shut your eye and started screaming in response.

You heard people rush into your room. A soothing liquid flowed into your veins and things started to feel much better and you could open your eye again.

"Try not to move, please. Are you still in pain?" A medic-nin asked you.

"I'm fine. What happened, I got caught in an explosion, I thought I was going to die. Was the village attacked?"

"No. Two of your classmates broke into your apartment and stole some of your explosive tags," they explained.

"Who?" You asked. You knew who, you just needed to get the confirmation before accusing anyone.

"Sasuke and Naruto. They're already getting suspended and will for a long time. I need to go look at the other patients. Though you have a visitor, should I let them in?"

"Yes," you answered.

You moved your eye towards the door and saw Itachi.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault," you said.

"Sota, you're not the fault that Naruto and my brother attacked you," Itachi said.

"I'm an awful person, I only got what I deserved."

"Sota, you're not an awful person. What can you possibly think you've done to deserve this?"

"I bullied him, then I rejected Naruto's friendship, I can't make any friends on my own," you cried out.

"You changed, you're no longer bullying anyone. You are a friendly person around your friends. You don't owe Naruto your friendship, you're too different to get along. And you know that. Blaming yourself might make you feel you've control over your own fate. But that doesn't make it true."

"I just had a nightmare, big blue cat told me I was awful and heartless," you said.

"Sota, cats are cute little assholes," he said. "But you shouldn't believe what they're telling you all the time."

"Can you move your arm?" He asked you.

As you replied "yes", he pulled out a stick of dango to hand you.

"Thanks, you're a good friend," you replied as you grabbed the stick of deliciousness.

"There is something I need to come clean about. I might not be the best timing, but I feel it's better to get over with it. Know that it won't change anything. Just promise me that you'll let me finish talking?"

"I will," you replied.

"You may wonder why I befriended you months ago. The truth is that I was told to seek you out by Danzo to befriend and report back on you. But that doesn't mean I never saw you as a friend. I don't really know why he was interested in you."

"I'm the two-tails' Jinchuuriki," you told him.

"Should you really be telling me that? That kind of stuff is definitely classified," he said.

"No one told me that I couldn't tell anyone. I just learnt about it. I talked to her. She tried making me feel guilty about everything, it worked."

"Don't talk to her again will you?" He asked you.

"She needs a friend too, she just needs time. She saved my life," you said.

"You're a strange kid. She is awful and manipulative towards you and you still want to be her friend. Don't you see that makes you a good friend, not a bad one?"

"I guess," you replied.

"And you still want to be my friend even after what I told you?"

"Yes."

"Then you are a good forgiving friend. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise," he said.

"Thanks," you mumbled.

"I hope you'll forgive Sasuke too. He didn't know how dangerous what he did was. He was mad at me for spending so much time with you and not him. He's not a revengeful kid," Itachi explained.

It was finally time to tell Itachi the truth.

"Sasuke is all about revenge," you said.

"What do you mean?" Itachi asked.

"He'll do anything to get powerful enough to kill you."

"Why would Sasuke want to kill me, he loves me?"

"You're going to do something horrible by orders of Danzo to protect him and the village."

Itachi didn't say anything for a while, just sat there and thought about what you were saying.

"When?"

"In two years," you explained. "Unless something changes for the better or worse."

"I'm sorry, but you must be wrong about this. Let's not talk about this again. And if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, you really shouldn't be so open about it. There are ears and eyes everywhere, and I just told you that I'm spying on you. Why do you trust me so much?"

"I know the future," you said.

"I'm going to call off the mission and tell him that you figured me out. But I'll still be your friend. And don't think for a second that our friendship isn't real."

"Thanks,"

"I need to go watch Sasuke and Naruto. They'll have to do chores around the village till their suspension is over. I'll come back tonight," Itachi said.

Without anything to do and the effects of the treatment, you just wanted to nap, hopefully, you wouldn't wake up to her again.

-x-

Sudden knocks on your window woke you up later that night. You looked outside, trying to not move too much around. It was pitch dark both inside and outside, but you could see the glowing eyes of Itachi's Sharingan. Where had he been?

He stealthily opened the window and stealthily entered the room.

He moved right next to you and whispered in your ear. "Sorry, I'm late. You were right about earlier. Danzo let me go on this mission, so now he wants me to spy on my own clan to figure out what they're up to. I want to hear everything you know one day, but we'd need to take that outside the village, we can't take any chances. I can't request you on a mission before you graduate. I just hope no one is onto us yet."

Itachi turned off his Sharingan and everything became dark again. You couldn't even hear him leave. He wasn't sneaky ninja for nothing.

-x-

Itachi didn't visit you again before the afternoon the next day, but some dango made you forgive him right away. He was right about one thing, stuffing balls inside you made you happy.

"I'm sorry, Naruto and Sasuke spent too much time arguing today, they had to make up for it for staying longer. Things are not going well, Father is furious, he thinks Sasuke is being too heavily punished. He doesn't understand that Sasuke got rather easily away from it. Any two other students would have gotten kicked out of the academy for good," Itachi explained.

"Do you know what happened. I assume the Hokage talked with all four of you?" You asked.

"Yes. Since Father is the clan-head and chief of the Police, any case involving Sasuke can't really be dealt with within the clan. It doesn't help that my father insists they'd process it fairly. So he's pretty mad about that.

"I'm trying to calm him down and get him to understand that this is good for my brother. He worries about how this will affect Sasuke's education. We've both gotten strict instructions to not teach him anything to make up for missing school, and one of us have to watch over them each day as they're performing their punishment. So far father hasn't done his fair share."

"How long are they being suspended?"

"Twice the time until you recover completely. If you had been anyone else, that could take a long time. Hopefully, my father will calm down when he sees you're a quick healer. And he will get permission to start teaching Sasuke when you're back at the academy and can start your own training again."

"Why is the Hokage doing this, doesn't he want us all to be our best? Doesn't make sense to deny Naruto and Sasuke training," you said.

"There has always been a rivalry between ninja, even in the same village. The Hokage was very clear on the fact that Sasuke's crime should not give him any benefit in catching up to you."

"You should try talking to the Hokage about this, how you fear this will create a bigger rift between the Uchiha and the village and figure out something that can weight up for this situation. I don't want to be the reason everything goes wrong even earlier."

"What do you suggest?" Itachi asked.

"I dunno. Give some Uchiha an undeserved promotion, name a bridge in your father's honour. You can think about something. Maybe…" you stopped yourself from continuing.

"Maybe what?"

"Offer Sasuke the chance to graduate early alongside me. He'll fail I'm sure, but it will show your father some respect."

"I hope you're right, if my baby brother is being put in danger due to early graduation, I'll make you buy your own dango."

"You wouldn't dare!" You said.

-x-

Itachi had other stuff to do. You couldn't exactly do any training in your current state. Not that the nurses would approve of sparring in the hospital bed. So safe to say, you were bored again.

Your next visitor was a bit more of a surprise.

And not the good kind of surprise. Like some foreign prince wanting to give you money. No, more like the kind of surprise people get when they find nasty stuff in their food.

"We look like twins now," you greeted Danzo.

Turns out that the man didn't appreciate a good joke, he didn't even smile.

"Good evening Uzumaki," he said.

"Evening," you replied. If he wanted to be more formal with fewer jokes you better listen to him.

"Is there anything you want to tell me?" He asked.

"No," you said. The less that man knew the better.

"Are you sure about that, as that's not what I've heard," he said.

"And what have you heard?" You wondered.

"I want to know it from you rather than base my actions on rumours," Danzo said. All the telltales of a bluff. But he knew stuff, Itachi had probably told him about the cat. He was just testing you, and you knew better than to get on his bad sides. You should probably not have told that joke earlier.

"I meet with the two-tails. She wanted me to release her, but I said no," you explained.

"And when was this?" He asked.

"After I got attacked. I woke up in a lake surrounded by bars with her seal on the outside. Then she taunted me."

"So it wasn't she who told you about my organization. So who was it? Kakashi right?"

"No it wasn't," you said.

"He threatened you didn't he?" Danzo said.

"Yes, he told me to not put the blame on him. I don't know how I know. My memory loss made me remember other's memories at the cost of forgetting myself. I don't think you've any traitor to deal with."

"What more do you remember that you shouldn't?" He asked you.

"I only remember people's names. That's how I knew your name too," you said. You were probably not a good liar. But he seemed to be a man that could work with half-truths. And letting his targets think they got away with it.

"You've no one to help you with fuuinjutsu lately, is that right?"

"I've managed to get some stuff done on my own."

"Like what? Your apartment was checked for any other dangerous items. But all that was found was explosive tags. Some quite potent ones. But nothing special."

"I might have gotten a bit hooked on them. Explosions are fun as long as you don't get caught in your own."

"Do you know who Uzumaki Mito is?" He asked you.

"Yes," you said. Not daring to lie.

"I once had the chance to study under her. I could help you," he offered.

Why did he think you'd want to be around him more than necessary? The only reason you weren't running away from him was that you couldn't.

"She isn't my secret grandmother or something?" You asked.

"No. You're too young for that. I don't know your heritage. You seek to graduate early right, how is that going?"

"I still can't get the hang of the clone Jutsu. And with the two-tails, it is probably impossible."

"You know there are ways around it, but you won't learn that jutsu before you're a jounin."

"Shadow clones?" You asked.

"So you've heard about it. But I can influence things. I and the Hokage are old friends. If it's up to Hiruzen, he'd have you wait till you're twelve like anyone else."

"I can just ask Itachi or Shisui for help," you said.

"And cause them to get in trouble for teaching you a jutsu well above your level?"

"I guess not," you said.

"Think about my offer. I can set up a little workshop for you," he offered.

"My own room works perfectly well," you countered.

"You almost got killed by your own work. You won't be allowed to continue studying in such an unsafe environment," he said.

"So it's either becoming your student or not doing any fuuinjutsu at all?"

"Think about it for a few days will you?"

What to do, what to do…

You could learn a lot from him. But he's Danzo. He never does anything without ulterior motives. He'd probably work on manipulating you over time to join Root by changing your perception of him. Make you grateful for his help. And the terrifying part is that it would probably work.

And if you said no. You'd be stuck in the academy for ages. Never really progress in Fuuinjutsu and be quite ill-prepared when Akatsuki comes for your asshole cat.

You needed to talk with someone else about this.

-x-

In the next days, you had no visitors. No signs of either Shisui or Itachi. Only yourself and miles of bandages.

Though there wasn't only bad news. They'd freed your right arm so you had a bit more mobility, even if it was a bit stiff still. And being able to sit up in bed was quite nice after being forced to lie down for days.

The nurses had provided you with some colouring books to keep you occupied as you quickly finished your homework. Could you make seals with crayons or did it have to be ink?

The nurses would probably not appreciate it if you started to produce explosives in your bed after an explosive accident.

You should start working on making seals that could absorb explosives automatically so this wouldn't happen again. But currently, the fire absorption seal you knew required a manual trigger. But Kakashi did mention seal in the Hokage's office to prevent a Kage to set fire to his own paperwork. If only you got your hands on one of those.

But they were hidden and you wouldn't get your hands on them. Though Danzo could…

No, you were no Sasuke. Making deals with the devil to gain power was stupid. But making deals with the devil to gain knowledge was another case.

Why was the urge to learn so strong inside you?

You just needed to work on defending yourself from manipulation. You said no to Matatabi, you can say no to Danzo if things go too far.

Just up the offer to include that seal.

Then it was just waiting for Danzo to visit again.

In the meantime, start on colouring in the three Sannin. How old was this colouring book to still include Orochimaru? At least it was fun to give the man pink hair.

As much as you wanted to experiment with more seals, it wouldn't be good if the nurses confiscated your only entertainment.

-x-

After another couple of days of no visits, Danzo appeared in the room with you again.

"Good evening Uzumaki," he greeted.

"Evening Danzo," you replied, not wanting to offend the man even more than you'd done. You wanted on his good side for once.

"So have you gotten some time to think about my offer?" He asked.

"I've," you said.

"So?"

"I'll accept it on one condition, I want to learn how the fire suppressing seals in the Hokage's office work," you said.

Danzo responded by closing his eye.

Thinking. Thinking too long.

"I don't see the harm, I'll see what I can do. Though in return, keep this between us. For everything you're asking me, some trust and confidentiality is a small price," he finally said before leaving.

-x-

It wasn't till Itachi visited two hours later you realized how stupid you had been.

It wasn't because no one liked you that you hadn't gotten visitors. It was because Danzo didn't want you to discuss the matter with anyone.

Too late to change your mind now. And despite everything, you were convinced you'd come advantageous out of it. So why ruin it with paranoia? He might just want to help you grow for the sake of Konoha, especially now that you learn the truth about yourself.

Danzo would probably find out and figure a way to punish you if you told Itachi anything.

How would he know though? Itachi isn't spying on you for him anymore. But…

Better not risk it.

"What are you thinking about Sota?"

"Your cute face," you said.

"Keep your secrets," Itachi smiled.

"Where have you been, it has been quite lonely here you know," you said.

"I and Shisui were called on a mission the morning after I visited you last time. I had sadly no chance of telling you beforehand," he explained.

Proving your previous thoughts perfectly.

"You're now. So did that mean your father had to watch Sasuke all week?"

"Yes, he was not happy about it. But I did as you suggested and talked with the Hokage. He seemed to approve, he just needed to think a bit about it. He has invited father for tea later today. So we'll see how that's going," he said.

"I hope everything goes well. I don't want to lose you."

"You won't lose me, we'll find a way to solve this," Itachi said and put a hand on your head to comfort you.


	4. Chapter 4

Another few days and you were out of the hospital.

Your legs were still not healed well enough to walk on. And you still had the bandage covering half of your head, but that would get removed later that day. So you had to stay in a wheelchair for perhaps a week they estimated.

But it was easy to roll around. The village was pretty flat and as a ninja, you had strong enough arms. As you rolled into the classroom, you could see the worry on their eyes.

Hinata raised her hand in the air.

"Yes, Hinata," Iruka said.

"Will he be okay?" She asked.

"Yes, the doctors are certain he'll recover. No need to worry about that, class. But he'll not be able to participate in every activity till he recovers."

"You better get better Sota, I've gotten a lot stronger since you've been gone, I'm going to kick your ass," Kiba warmed your heart there. Despite pushing everyone away, you were kind of part of the class for the first time.

"Kiba, stop bragging, he could beat you while in a wheelchair," Shikamaru told him.

Thanks for the trust Shika, but don't push me in any necessarily challenges, that would be _Troublesome_ as you say.

Japanese was the only useful class you had here really. And even here you didn't feel you learnt much, it was easy to keep up with the lost material. Especially as you'd been provided with the missed schoolwork while at the hospital. So safe to say, school was going to be useless till you could move your body around again.

You got some comforting smiles during the day and you took Matatabi's words to you and smiled back but no one approached to talk to you.

-x-

Later that day you were back at the hospital.

"How did the day go, any problems?" One of your regular nurses asked.

"No," and if there was, you wouldn't give them any reason to keep you here even longer.

"Good, then we start removing some of your bandages," she said and rolled you towards a mirror so you could see for yourself.

One green eye peeked back at you with your red hair peeking up. How could Danzo deny your similarities? If it wasn't for the fact that you didn't want Naruto close to him, you'd dare him to dye his hair red as a prank to solidify the picture.

The nurse started to pull on the bandages, finally getting fresh air on your skin like shedding a second skin. Finally getting your depth vision back.

But it wasn't a green eye that meets you, but a vibrant yellow one.

You growled into the mirror, making the nurse take a step back.

Damn you Matatabi! You knew exactly what she was thinking. Giving you a little gift as a reminder that she saved you so you'd be grateful towards her in the future.

Though if your eye was destroyed in the attack, this was better than nothing or Danzo sneaking in a Sharingan into your eye socket.

Though you didn't really have to worry too much, the cat was far from as well known as Kurama as she had never attacked the village. So hopefully no one would make much out of it. And in your class, only Sasuke had probably looked enough at your eyes during spars to notice any change.

The issue was more putting on a signpost for Akatsuki. And unless you were Tsunade, trying to hide your appearance for any amount of time was never going to work.

You had little wish to destroy your eye again to hide it. You quite liked your depth perception.

As you left the hospital you saw Shisui approaching you.

His eye meeting yours, not like in a romantic comedy sense. But rather to address the elephant in the room. Your new eye.

"How?" He asked.

"Furry little problem," you answered.

"Does it have any special powers?"

"I don't know, just discovered it. I doubt it, it's probably just decorative, so now our eyes match,"

"How do you feel about it?" He asked.

"I don't like it. Hey, stop pushing me!" You exclaimed.

"I just wanted to help you," he said.

"I've been unable to move on my own for days, so I want to be in control myself. Sorry, I know you just wanted to help," you smiled at him.

-x-

You were a bit surprised when you saw Shikamaru approach you the next day after school.

"Sota, my father is out of the village for a mission, so I don't have any to play Shogi with, do you want to give it a try?"

"I don't know how to play," you answered.

"I can teach you, so what do you say?"

"Okay," it could be fun.

It was a bit of a distance to where he lived, but not that bad.

He pushed away one of the chairs in front of the table so you could fit and began setting up the board.

"We're supposed to capture each other's king", he said pointing to the two king pieces.

The nice thing with playing Shogi when actually proficient at Japanese was that every piece was nicely labelled and not just confusing scribbles one would have to learn.

"Every piece can move differently. The king can move one step in any direction. The lance can move forwards as far as he wants but he cannot jump over pieces," he explained each pieces' moves by pointing to it and showing some legal moves.

It was kind of like chess, but more like the Crazyhouse variant as you could put captured pieces back on the board on your team instead of a normal move. And unlike chess, it wasn't just the pawns that could promote, but in return, each piece had their own promoted state and wouldn't become queens, in fact, there were no queens in this game. And promotion wasn't always beneficial in this game unlike chess as certain pieces would lose part of its mobility in exchange for other movement options.

Safe to say, this was complicated.

"Do you think you'll get it?" he asked.

You nodded.

"Just ask if you forget how to move a piece."

"Okay, who's starting?" You asked.

"You can start."

You'd no idea of any Shogi opening theory, so you started like in chess and moved a pawn to give your officers a chance to escape.

There was no surprise that your king didn't live a long and prosperous life, as Shikamaru quickly cornered him.

"Play again?" He asked you.

You nodded and this time you tried to help him set up the board, but you limit yourself to the pawn line as that was the only one you could properly remember.

"What do you think?" He asked.

"It's alright, I just need to get better so I can have more fun with it," you said and made your first move.

"You can have fun with something even if you're not the best," he told you and replied with a move of his own.

"I know, I just want to have a fighting chance in whatever I do."

"That's fair."

The only thing differing this round was that you were less unsure about the pieces' move-set, but you still lost hard.

"Again," you mumbled.

"Alright," he said.

And another loss for you.

"O hi Shikamaru, I see you've got a friend over. You didn't tell me that you've made a new friend," You looked up and saw a woman who looked like Shikamaru's mother.

It didn't seem like he had anything to say.

"You answer me when I talk to you Shikamaru."

"Sorry mom, I've not talked to Sota before today."

"That's better. Have you invited him for dinner yet?"

"No mom," Shikamaru said.

"I'm sorry about him. The dinner is soon ready, so go and wash your hands so we can eat."

"I'm fine," you replied.

"Rubbish, Shikamaru never brings friends so I'll never get to know them. I've more enough food now that Shikaku isn't home," she said.

Her eyes weren't very comforting, at least Danzo eyes were emotionless. Maybe you could become friends with Shikamaru, but it wouldn't do if his mother hated you.

"I guess I'm hungry, food sounds good."

"See that's not that hard, now go wash your hands, boys."

Shikamaru helped you over the doorstep and lead the way to the bathroom. When you reached the sink you noticed a problem. There was no way of reaching it.

"I've got a bit of a problem," you said.

"Oh… How do you solve it at home?" He asked you.

"I have a basin I fill with water so I can wash my hands in that."

"Oh, I don't know if we have anything like that," he said and went to look through the drawers.

He grabbed a hand towel, wet it and put some soap on one end.

"Give me your hands," he told you and you reached out so he could begin to wash them. Being quite thorough. "Mom is quite picky when it comes to cleaning under the nails."

He then made sure to wash off the handlebars on your wheelchair before washing his own in a normal manner.

"I hope it's okay that I push you so that you don't dirty your hands again?"

"It's okay," you replied.

The food did smell delicious, so maybe this wasn't such a bad idea.

"Itadakimasu," the three of you greeted before you're allowed to touch the food.

It was kind of a stew with rice on the side if it tasted as good as it smelt, you were in for a treat.

"So I hear you're on the top of the class?" She asked you.

You nodded, it was rude to speak with your mouth full of food, so you slowed down in order to answer any other questions in a timely manner.

"Your parents must be proud of you."

"I'm an orphan."

"Oh, it must be hard," she continued.

"I don't know anything else," you said. It wasn't really true for you, but it was true for Uzumaki Sota. It would probably be a bit more problematic for you growing up with parents when you were far from a real six-year-old.

"It's just a bit surprising, one wouldn't expect an orphan to do so well. Most are no good troublemakers, but of course, you're one of the good kind. Not taking anything for granted and put some effort into your life and not expect everything to be handed to you just because you've lost your parents."

The food suddenly didn't taste so well anymore.

"It's bad what happened to you, attacking a classmate like that is unheard of, and getting away with a slap on the wrist. Getting expelled would be a mild punishment for _that boy_ , he's nothing but a troublemaker. A perfect example of one of the no-good orphans out there."

You half paid attention to her while just stirring around with the food, but you didn't miss a word of what she was saying.

"Eat properly Sota," she commented before continuing. "Same with that Uchiha friend of his. Just shows how out of control the clan is that the son of the police chief was involved in something like this. They are policing us, but who is policing the Uchiha? There is too many of them, I'm just glad they mostly keep to themselves when they're not patrolling. My friend had her bag stolen a few weeks ago and the Uchiha police haven't done anything to find it. Wouldn't surprise me if they stole it themselves."

Something in your belly began to stir, and you couldn't tell if you were about to vomit or release Matatabi onto the dinner table. Even if she deserved the former, the later would be really really bad.

"I need to go to the bathroom, I'm not feeling that well."

"I hope it wasn't my food, though given how little you've eaten it was probably something you've eaten earlier today. You should check your fridge for old food and smell it before eating it. If it smells bad it's probably gone bad."

You had noticed the side door when you got back from the bathroom earlier, so it was your way out without her noticing.

You carefully slid the door open and it was quiet enough for no one to hear. It did end up in the back garden and you carefully went around the house the other direction to not pass the kitchen window.

"Where did he go, he's been in there forever?" Shikamaru's mother asked her son.

"I think he left," he answered.

"What a rude kid, I guess there is something you need a firm hand from a parent to learn.

-x-

Shikamaru hadn't said anything during school today. And you were kind of happy about it. Now it was just one class left before you could home. And given it was ninja training, it was probably another day of you just watching while the others doing stuff.

"Today we'll be running laps around the track," Mizuki announced. "Sota, you'll join in today too."

It was nice to have something to do, so you took this as a pleasant surprise.

You weren't able to keep up with Kiba today, but you did your best and it was good training for your arms. Your speed, in general, was something you really needed to work on. It wouldn't matter if you got strong in other ways if you couldn't keep up with your enemies. So just tying Kiba wasn't good enough.

But at least your endurance wasn't a problem so you were able to keep a solid pace till Mizuki called off the day.

Shikamaru approached you, looking a bit tense. "Sota, I'm sorry about my mom yesterday. She can be a bit much when dad isn't home. I didn't know she would act like that, I don't have friends over much."

"It's okay," you replied.

"So should we do something today. We could watch the clouds?"

"It's overclouded and it's about to rain, we won't see much," you replied.

"You're right, stupid question," he said.

You began to roll home again.

"Wait," he said and you turned back towards him. "We could go see the deer."

You watched him, not sure what to say.

"Mom won't disturb us, she's not involving herself with the animals unless she must."

"It could be nice."

"Do you want me to push you, your hands must be sore after today?" He asked you.

You took a look at them and realized that they were starting to get warm. "I guess it would be nice, they are starting to get a bit red."

"Just wait a bit so I can take a shower."

"Alright," you answered.

Shikamaru was done in maybe 5-10 minutes. It didn't feel that long to be honest. And you didn't blame him, a nice shower was nice after physical activity but you didn't have that chance. Though the light drizzle from the rain cooled you down a bit.

"You're ready?" He asked from behind you.

You nodded.

"You know, the teachers won't notice if you slow it down a bit."

"I don't want to slow down, I need to catch up what I've lost and then more."

"You're weird."

He was perhaps right, but being weird isn't that bad.

The rain was starting to pour down stronger now, but you didn't mind and it didn't look like it affected him either.

You were almost there, you could see the forest not too far into the distance.

"Just don't do any sudden movement or any loud noises or else you scare them," he explained.

"Okay."

As you got under the foliage, you got some protection from the weather. And you got a glimpse of them further inside the woods.

Shikamaru put his finger in his mouth and whistled for them, and one after the one several deer started to approach you.

You'd eaten deer meat before, quite tasty, but never seen anyone this close up.

Shikamaru had gotten a bag of seeds from his backpack and was now holding a handful for them to lick up.

"Do you want to try?" he asked, handing you the bag.

You nodded and grabbed it. Then took a handful of seeds in your hand. The animals were a bit wary. Sniffed around, not sure what to do. One of them took a look at Shikamaru and with a subtle nod from him, your hand tingled as it licked up the treats in one go. You grabbed another handful and another one grab the chance. Then one more to feed the last of them, this one had a quite impressive set of antlers.

You took your chance and started stroking his muzzle. He seems to like it judging by its expression. He looked happy at least.

Then he pulled away, what did you do wrong? You looked towards Shikamaru, but he wasn't paying attention to you, he was busy attending to another deer.

Was he going to attack, getting impaled by a ninja deer was not how you wanted to die, but Shika also said you shouldn't scare them.

He got closer and then you could feel his wet tongue running up your cheek. This was quite nice. You could probably quite enjoy this life. But there was a nagging feeling that you should have stood up for your friends the previous day.

-x-

You didn't have to stay in a wheelchair for long. After perhaps a week, you were free to do whatever, declared fully recovered.

_Thank you Matatabi_ you tried sending your thoughts to her. You appreciated her help, you wouldn't be standing here without her, you were just not thankful enough to foolishly release her.

Something was stirring in the bushes, was that blue fur you saw? Or was this just _the cat_ messing with you again? But it wouldn't hurt getting closer. Move slowly towards it to not scare it.

There was nothing there, you crouched and looked closer into the bushes, but nothing. It shouldn't be that hard to notice a blue animal?

You heard rassling again. How did this animal manage to get from bush to bush without you noticing?

You should stop following it, but now you were kind of invested. Just keep sight on the where it could run instead of focusing as much on the bush itself. Sneak slowly towards it like a ninja.

Slowly and steady you approached it, there was no more movement, so this was your chance.

But before you could reach it things started to change around you, your brain getting fuzzy, but you kept on walking till reality snapped back around you. Around you were dirt and stone walls, and yeah, Danzo towering over you.

"If you can't tell an illusion from reality you won't last long," he said.

"They don't teach us that at the academy."

"You should ask your Uchiha friends for help. Though over to other business. I was able to secure you a copy of the seal you wanted and a room. Follow me."

You walked a bit further into the tunnels before Danzo stopped before an empty spot on the wall and placed his hand on it.

A glowing hand later, and a door opened up from nowhere. He then signalled you to get in.

The room was quite large but barren. In the nearest corner was a desk and chair along with shelves of materials. Another one with small boxes with unfilled name tags. Similar to what you have had at home, just scaled up. And a sink to wash your hands and drink if you got thirsty.

"It's quite big," you said.

"Its to confuse attackers so they can't sense which rooms are important and which isn't with earth jutsu alone."

Was that really a concern?

"I'll be back in a few hours," Danzo said and left the room. Leaving no door for you to exit.

Being locked in here was a bit worrying, but Danzo wouldn't attempt anything here. The Hokage wouldn't let him steal a Jinchuuriki and if you disappeared while being down here, Danzo would be the top suspect guilty or not. So this should be the safest place to be in regards to him, right?

You sat down at your desk and noticed the scroll and lighter laying there. Better get to work.

Taking a look at the seal it looked confusing at first. But it was just an illusion. The complexity looked like a result of sloppy sealing or obfuscating. Or perhaps making it take up less space.

It consisted of the normal fire absorption and some trigger mechanism. There was only one fire symbol, but it was used twice. Both to absorb and detect fire.

So in that way, it was a useful construct. Replace the fire with something else and you've done most of the job. But you'd still want to clean it up if you could.

But given that it was your first try, you'd just copy what you'd been given. Though it was annoyingly big if you were to create these en masse.

It took some time getting it down, future attempts would hopefully be much faster.

But what were you going to do now? Did it need any other activation? Better just test it.

With a flick of the lighter, the original scroll activated and swallowed the flame before you could even see anything.

Wait, how did the Hokage light his pipe with this security in place? There might be some other changes to the actual seals used in the office.

You reckoned that if you powered chakra through the detection part, it should work.

You weren't completely sure how much chakra you needed. But that was another part to test out later and how it affected different seals in the different parts of production. So, for now, you poured in a solid chunk.

And lit the lighter again. Not a flame and you could see the trapped fire glowing red inside your own seal.

But as you lit the lighter yet another time, there was no second activation from either scroll, just a burning flame. That was no good. A bunch of small fires could overload any reasonable defence you'd create, in a ninjutsu denial of service attack.

Splitting it into several parts should do the job. Detection, storing and multiple storage cells. You also had to work on getting them out of there again. As they currently looked like they were stuck.

Though back to your own creation.

One step at a time. First, separate the current two interwoven seals and test those properly.

You had no idea how much time you'd spent locked inside. The act of cleaning up the messy seal took forever. With your head yelling at you at almost every step. Forcing you to restart several times as you performed irreversible mistakes.

But in the end, you had something promising. The original fire absorption seal mostly unchanged, bar a few connections to the other part of the seal. Now it was time for another test.

And it worked and you raised your hands in joy.

"Good job," Danzo spoke behind you.

"How long have you been there?" You said and pointed accusingly at him.

"Ten-Fifteen minutes and you didn't notice that I was standing right behind you,"

"I get that you're sneaky bas…" you stopped yourself. No need to insult the man after helping you. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to call you that."

"How do the Hokage light his pipe?" You asked.

"So you noticed that? You can deactivate the seal by the use of chakra. You'd want to remove that part if you want to use it defensively. But that would need to wait for another day. I'll show you how to leave and enter the tunnels."

"Come on, can't I stay a bit longer?" You asked with a pout.

"No."

You got up and followed Danzo out the door.

As you got outside, Danzo touched your back head and you felt a prick.

"It's the _key_ for leaving and entering this place. Try not getting followed and don't disturb anyone else you meet in the tunnels unless they talk to you. Don't go exploring, not that you'll get far without the necessary seals to give you access and perception to see the real layout down here. Don't try to make your own _keys_ and don't study anything you shouldn't. Is that understood?"

"Yes," you said understanding the gravity of the situation. You were probably within the tunnels of Root and he didn't want you sneaking around.

Your status as a JInchuuriki couldn't protect you against everything. An unruly rebellious one could be worse than having none at all. And Konoha had one spare.

"Someone will be here to help you inside your room again tomorrow. You'll get access later."

As you walked further toward the entrance, you noticed what looked like a transparent cloth covering the way forward.

As you moved through it, the landscape around you started to change, instead of the dark stone walls, things became greener around you till you there walking through the trees again. Behind you were the same kind of portal. You better keep a good look at the road home so you could find your way tomorrow.

You were bored already as your home was stripped from any kind of fuuinjutsu supply, why didn't Danzo want you there longer?

-x-

The next day, it was time for your first spar in a _long_ time.

And you were matched up against Kiba.

"Finally Sota, time to prove that I'm the new top student."

You turned towards Iruka. "Sensei, I feel this is is a bit unfair fight. Kiba should get a teammate to make it fair."

You'd practised against Itachi with both one or two shadow clones. You had lost of course but after a while, you could at least put up some defence against him.

"Sota, fight Kiba properly and don't try to show off."

"It's okay for me," Kiba stated. "If he wants to get humiliated even harder. Hinata, will you help me?"

"Alright kids, let's have a lesson on what happens when you underestimate your opponents."

Kiba and Hinata stood on each side of you and as soon as Iruka gave the signal, Kiba charged at you. But you countered by kicking him back. Which Hinata tried to follow up with a punch, an insecure punch that didn't accomplish anything. Their coordination really needed some work.

Your goal was to get both of them on one side of you, which you managed by dragging Hinata out of the way. From there, you were quick to exert enough pressure to push them both out of the arena.

You turned towards Iruka who had an embarrassed look on his face. He clearly wanted you to lose, but he quickly composed himself.

"Good job Sota. Now Kiba, next time you should take your opponent more seriously and not start off bragging. And when choosing a teammate, partner up with someone who can complement your skills, not because you find them cute."

Kiba was too red to give any response.

But you'd have to say it was more fun than usual.

-x-

And talking about fun, it was time to continue working on seals. As you moved back to Danzo's base you made sure that no one was watching your movements. And soon you were back into the tunnels.

A much taller Root agent stood in front of you and took a look at you before moving forward to lead you to your room.

He put his hand on the door and opened it like Danzo did the day before. And again it locked behind you as you walked inside.

It was time to work on your defences. And the process was quite similar to what you did with Kakashi's mask.

And with many repeated attempts to please the voices in your head, you had a seal who should be able to absorb incoming explosions.

You went into the shelves and picked out a normal-sized explosive tag from one of the boxes. It looked like they had brought your previous stash in here.

You took Kakashi's lesson to heart and did not put your trust it untested. You knew that if you put it in near furthest corner, the blast couldn't hit you. So you put both seals in the corner and walked back to your desk.

And after folding your hands into a snake, nothing happened. Which was exactly what was supposed to happen. No explosions. You did it!

You picked up the seals and took a look at it. One had absorbed the explosion of the other. Leaving the original inert with some parts missing but quite intact in fact.

So you couldn't go straight ahead an recharge it without redrawing parts of it. But you should keep it for later study. There were so many obfuscated seals that made dealing with them much harder, but with one element gone, things should be easier.

You had to decide if you should focus on using the stored explosion or increasing the capacity. There was also the question about what would happen if your seal was too small to handle the explosion you gave it.

Before you could make any decision a large plate of food was set besides on you on the desk. Various fruits, some berries and of course dango along with some coloured drink.

You turned to the Root agent who was just standing there, perhaps wondering if there was something other you needed.

"Thank you Root-san," you replied. It was a silly name, but you couldn't make out what his mask was, so this was the second-best option.

You hated to admit it, but it was kind of nice here, maybe there was no reason to fear Danzo after all.

It wasn't too long until Naruto's birthday, a bit more than a month you reckoned. You should think of something to cheer him up with. One thing was seals itself, what if you could embed it in some nicer item, something that you could gift Naruto.

Some sort of blowpipe or flute could work, roll up a scroll of some sort inside a metal canister. Letting Naruto both absorb and shoot fireballs, that couldn't hurt, could it?

It would be a fun project, DIY ninja tools.

The only thing you knew that could help you here was storage seals. And if everything fit logically together, fire absorption seals should share attributes with storage seals, and what's left when taking those out of the picture would be the mechanism to store and expel the items. That should work, right? Better be quick about it if you wanted to test it out before Danzo kicked you out for the night. And before you forget, better stuff your pants with some explosive tags before you leave so you can play with them later on, smaller ones just to be safe.

-x-

Instead of going back underground the next day, you went to one of the nearby training grounds. You were alone, at least for now. You'd no idea how these kinds of things worked and if you had to reserve it or not. And If multiple people wanted to use the same grounds, were you supposed to figure something out together, or just let the lower-ranked yield to the higher-ranked?

Tying tags to the kunai was a bit of a tedious task. Unspool the thread, cut if with the kunai and thread it into both holes before tying a solid knot.

If you ever became a Jounin-Sensei, would you be allowed to delegate menial tasks like this to your cute little genin?

Become Team 7's sensei to save them from Kakashi.

Though if you planned to have someone prepare your equipment, Naruto and Sasuke was probably not the best pick, as they would probably stay far from explosives for a long time.

You lit the fuse of one of the tags and threw the kunai at a poor tree that you had decided would your poor victim for today.

It was not very satisfying, the explosions were small and it was a poor tactic. No one was going to stand still and wait to get blown up. And if you actually hit someone with it, you'd have success, but then the kunai would do the job just as well with little help of the explosive tag.

If you could colour the explosions, it could at least be decent fireworks, but this was nothing.

But you had nothing else to do, so why not just blow them all up. If you waited a bit before throwing, you could bake the explosives, but not worth the risk if something went wrong, even if these wouldn't cause you too much harm.

No, you wanted something safer, but that was a project for the future. So you just picked up another kunai and repeated the process.

It did start to cause some damage to the trunk, but Konoha wouldn't suffer from you destroying some trees.

"Can I try too?" You looked behind you and you could see a little girl face and hands full of bandaids.

"Sure," you replied and picked up a kunai for her. "You channel some chakra into the tag and then throw."

"Thanks," she said and carefully grabbed it. "Name is Tenten by the way."

You probably should have noticed her twin buns, but at the same time, the future 'Weapon Mistress' shouldn't be hurting herself that much. Or was this how she had ended up as good?

She was at least careful with the tag and didn't delay long after lighting the fuse before throwing it.

When it blew up, she let go of a loud squeal.

"Sensei doesn't let me play with these, tells me it's too dangerous," she commented.

"They can be if you're not careful," you replied.

"But I'm older than you, it's not fair that you're allowed but not me."

"I made them myself, and these are weaker than normal. I wanted to be careful, but these are just boring."

"Really? Cool. Can you teach me how? if I make my own, sensei can't tell me that I'm not allowed to use them."

You don't want her safety on your consciousness, and just now you noticed the first-aid bag she had over her shoulder. The familiar red cross was exchanged with a doctor symbol.

Someone should really teach her how to handle sharp objects and not leave her to trial and error.

"You should ask some of the teachers at the academy, they might be able to help you," you said. "Who is this Sensei?"

"Sensei is Sensei, he's an old man who watches over me."

"Yeah, but what is his name?"

"I just told you, he's Sensei. Just like Iruka Sensei or Mizuki Sensei. He's probably their father or something."

You wanted to say something, but that would just make you look like an ass. She was young, thinking that they were all named Sensei was excusable and a bit cute.

"Can I try another one?" She asked.

You nodded back and watched her throw another one with great enthusiasm.

"He's good with weapons, he made this for me," she said and retrieved an unusual kunai. "It's made out of silver so I can defeat ghosts."

"Are you afraid of ghosts?" you asked.

"Not anymore, with this, ghost better be afraid of me," she smiled.

"If you want, you can blow up the rest of the kunai."

"Thanks," she said and hugged you.

"Ouch," you exclaimed as something struct your back.

"Oh sorry, I'm still a bit clumsily with knives, but I'm getting better," she said and grabbed a bandaid to cover the small cut.

"It's fine," you smiled at her and sat down while she had fun with the explosions.

-x-

You were clutching your list of supplies as you walked towards the underground base, no school today, so more time to work. Danzo promised to help you out, but he had yet to really teach you anything. You didn't need that kind of help right now. Just getting some stuff, as long it didn't come with more demands.

"Root-san, could I talk to Danzo?" You asked one of the guards in the tunnel.

"I'll inform him. He'll join you in some hours," they said and opened the door for you.

While you were waiting you picked up your homework. It was boring and pointless, but it needed to be done.

After that, it was back to trying to expel the fire from the seal, as this was a bit harder than you expected. And when Danzo made his presence, you kind of had gotten some progress in the matter.

"What did you want?" He asked you.

"I need some stuff," you said and handed him the list.

He read through it in front of you. "I should be able to help you here, what is it for?"

"Just a weapon I want to try to make, it's supposed to be a gift to someone," you explained.

"I'll see what I can do."

You didn't see him anymore that day.

In the proceeding days, you spent all your time working on it while you were not at school. Danzo had secured you what you needed and the day before your deadline, it was done. Everything worked fine, now you just needed to find Shisui to fill with fireballs.

-x-

It was finally time to sneak through the night like a ninja trying to find Naruto's apartment, and at the same time not making Naruto's ANBU guards suspicious.

You got to his door without any issues and hang a small package on his door handle.

_Happy Birthday Naruto_

_From Sasuke._

That would hopefully work, Sasuke would probably correct Naruto, but at that point, Naruto would already be thankful towards him.

You were glad it was weekend so you could go back to bed.

-x-

October the 10th was far from Naruto's favourite day, it was, in fact, the worst day of the year. Not because anything bad happened, but because people were supposed to be happy on their birthday.

So after he woke up, he picked up some clothes from the floor and got dressed, before leaving his apartment.

As he turned around to look at his door. He noticed the package hanging from the door handle.

He had of course seen this kind of things before but never gotten one himself. Taking a look at a label, Naruto saw Sasuke's name written on it. Without caring about locking his door, he ran towards the Uchiha compound keeping a good grip on his gift like it was the most precious thing he owned.

Running past the guards, ignoring their yells and continued running towards Sasuke as he saw him walking along with Itachi. Before Sasuke could react, Naruto was embracing his classmate in a hug, though thanks to his momentum, both of them fell to the ground.

"Thank you," Naruto mumbled.

"What's going on Naruto?" Itachi asked and lifted the blond boy up from Sasuke.

He just held out his gift so Itachi could see and Sasuke was quick on his legs.

"So are you going to open it?" Itachi asked.

"Oh," Naruto replied and carefully removed the wrapping paper revealing an orange box inside and inside were something looking like a steel flute along with a folded up piece of paper.

He picked it up and looked at it and turned it around.

_Uzumaki_ was engraved on it, along with a small Uzumaki swirl.

"I love it," Naruto exclaimed and put the flute to his mouth. But it wasn't sound that appeared out of it, but a tiny fireball. A warning shot from your end.

"Cool!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"The next one will be bigger so be careful with it, it is not a toy," Itachi said with his nose down in the instruction manual. "You should have about 10 charges, and you can absorb fireball fires at you by sucking instead of blowing the flute. It says it should hold about 20 charges turning over the small instruction manual you've made so he could take a look. It was mostly small pictures of Naruto illustrating its use with some text for clarification.

-x-

"Morning Sota," Itachi greeted you later that day as you were taking run around the village. It was nice to get some sun on your body since you didn't get that much of it underground. And the weather was quite comfortable this time of year as long as it wasn't raining.

"Morning," you replied back.

"So, anything you want to confess?"

"Nope."

"So you don't know who gave Naruto his present?"

You slowed down a bit. "How did he like it?"

"He loved it. So why give it to him in Sasuke's name? Why not your own?" He asked.

"I don't know. I just don't want to."

"Can you try to explain why you don't want to?"

"I'm a bad influence," you said. Meaning you'll probably find some way to mess up his character arc for the worse.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, you're a good person."

"Naruto is going to be a hero, save the world, it is his fate. And that won't happen if I mess things up."

"There is no such thing fate Sota, nothing is written in stone. I don't see how you think you'll doom the world by becoming friends with Naruto."

"I want him to be happy, but I don't belong in his life. And its too late now," you said.

"Naruto seems to be a forgiving person, he'll forgive you for rejecting him if you want to be his friend. Sota, you're making a friendship out to be harder than it is, Naruto just wants someone to call a friend," Itachi explained.

"I was thinking if I could help them out a bit, they could be good for each other. Naruto wouldn't be so lonely," you said.

"You're already helping them you know. They got closer to each other during their suspension. They got the push they needed. Naruto seems to be good for Sasuke, he'd be good for you too, just please give him a chance will you?"

"Maybe," you said.

"Then come with me, Naruto is over at our house today."

"I don't know, I don't know what to. I don't want to mess up the future if I mess up stuff I can't see the future anymore."

"Forget about the future, think about the present. Whatever we need to do to save my clan will mess up much more than this. You assume you'll change the future for the worse, perhaps being Naruto's friend will make everything better."

"Okay, I'll come with you."

"Thanks, they're waiting for us,"

-x-

You took off your shoes and entered Itachi's home.

Why did you agree to this?

You could already smell the ramen. Why couldn't you turn around not risk ruining Naruto's day? But behind you were Itachi to push you forward till you were inside the living room.

Naruto turned towards you and gave you a look.

"I'm sorry for rejecting you, will you still be my friend?" You said and closed your eyes, if he rejected you, you'd rather not look at his face.

But he said nothing. Neither a yes or a no.

Though you felt arms embrace you and you could smell the ramen from Naruto.

"I'll be your friend bastard, you don't ignore family you know."

He kept his focus on you and now it was his turn to be nervous, you could feel his head shifting. "I'm sorry me and Sasuke attacked you. I didn't mean to try to kill you. I just thought it would knock you out and you'd be fine. I just wanted to... " Naruto said but lost his words in the end.

"I forgive both of you, I'm okay and stronger than ever," you smiled at him, not that he could see it.

He let you go and you could take a closer look at him. First now, you noticed that Naruto was taller than you. Wait, if you both were six when you got here, and now Naruto was seven. When was your birthday?

"I'm glad you two are finally friends, come and sit Sota so you can get something to eat too," Mikoto said.

Mikoto's ramen was delicious and Sasuke wasn't glaring at you as much as usual, you had no idea why though. Naruto seemed really happy through the day and Mikoto had made delicious dango.

-x-

"Iruka-sensei, I was wondering about something," you said as Iruka was collecting his paper after class.

"Go ahead," he smiled at you.

"When is my birthday?"

"Oh… Let me see," he said and sorted through his papers until he found what he was looking for."

"Ah, December 27th, the same day as Hinata."

"Oh, I'm the youngest in the class. I just thought…" you mumbled.

"Something wrong? Nothing wrong with being the youngest in the class, you're strong, no one dispute that."

"Nothing is wrong, I just hoped I was a bit older. I was at Sasuke's house and celebrated Naruto's birthday with him, so I was just wondering."

"I'm happy to hear that you're friends now. He needs every friend he can get. How are you and Sasuke doing?"

"I don't know, does it matter?"

"I just don't want Naruto to get hurt if things get worse between you two."

-x-

Next time you visited the underground tunnels of Root, Danzo was there waiting for you.

"It's time for me to upheld another part of my promise," he stated as he opened your door.

"Huh?"

"Shadow clones, unless you don't need it anymore?"

"I do, let's start."

"Note that this is a dangerous Jutsu for people your age, trying to teach your classmates this will kill them. Hiruzen won't let you graduate if you murder one of them."

No, that's how you graduate Root. Did he really suggest that he himself didn't care if you did something like that? Hinting to you, hey, if you kill one of them I'm going to bail you out?

"I get it," you replied, rather than _Go fuck yourself_ that would be appropriate if that was his insinuation.

There was no reaction from him. Could he read you and choose to pretend there was nothing sinister behind his words or was there nothing to notice. That's the tricky part of subtle facial expression, no real way for you to notice your own.

What followed was hours of practice, ensuring you didn't accidentally create too many or didn't mess up in other ways. You hate to say it, but Danzo was actually a pretty decent teacher.

When he finally left, you were able to do things your way. You summoned a single clone.

You kind of want to take a good look at yourself. Mirrors could only do so much. You walked around it observing it from every direction.

"Stop doing that, you're making me uncomfortable," your clone said.

You didn't have to listen to your clone. Danzo did put a seal on the back of your neck, so why not study it? You moved your hand to move your clone's hair out of the way.

"I said cut it out!" Your clone yelled at you and punch you.

You clutched your stomach and glared at it.

There was something weird about this clone, it didn't feel like you, even if you understood its actions.

"What happened before we got hit in the head?" You asked, if this was the real Sota hidden inside you, you could finally get answers.

"I don't remember. You know that perfectly well," it answered.

Perhaps not, but it was clearly more temperamental than you. Or perhaps not, it just acted more on its emotions than you did. You couldn't deny that sometimes punching people would be a satisfying act, but that sort of response would lead to all sorts of problems and was simply not right.

Maybe you were asking the wrong questions. Or rather, you were asking questions about the wrong person.

"Who am I?"

"You are me, so why act so strange?" It said.

So you could at least agree that you were strange to each other.

"I'm your clone, doesn't that mean I should be like you?" It asked.

"You should, but you also know that you're a clone, so there is bound to be differences, right?"

"You should ask Danzo, he probably knows."

"I don't think we should, if something is wrong, it's better he doesn't know," you explained.

"If you say so," It paused and rubbed his armed. "I'm sorry I punched you."

"It's okay," you said. This was really going to be weird. And it was clear that you couldn't properly trust your clone, as it perceived people differently than yourself, could it end up betraying you mid-battle too? But why apologize? Based on how Sota had acted in the past, it seems like the other you wouldn't care too much about people holding a grudge against him.

"Can I trust you?" You asked.

"I'm not sure if one can trust anyone, I'm confused. You're telling me that I shouldn't trust Danzo, but why do you act like he can be trusted?"

"I don't trust him."

"Then why are you here locked inside?"

"I can leave whenever I want."

"Then leave," the clone grunted.

You folding your hands and dispelled it.

"Stop messing with my head," you muttered out into the empty room. "I'm in control."

-x-

After finishing the academy the next day, Neji approached you as you were leaving. "You're Sota right, do you mind if we spar?"

"Uhh, okay," you said. It would be good to try yourself against someone other than Itachi for once.

"Follow me."

It wasn't a familiar road through the village, but you hadn't wandered that much around in the last months. After a few minutes, you could see the walls of the Hyuuga compound. Two clan-members standing guard.

"Who is that," one of them asked Neji and pointed at you.

"It's a friend from school, we're going to have a spar," Neji answered.

Friends? But you just meet.

"Don't cause any trouble," one of them told you and before stepping away."

Was this because you were an outsider? Better not overthink this and just follow him to his home.

You took off your shoes and followed him inside. The inside was quite nice looking, similar to Itachi's home. It would make sense that both traditional clans shared the same kind of traditional interior design.

"The Dojo is in here," he said and lead you in another door.

The room was quite spacious and you got in the middle of the room alongside him.

"Ready?" He asked.

You got into a comfortable stance and replied back, "Ready."

Before he did anything else, he activated his Byakugan. It was kind of cheating, but it didn't matter. If you wanted to be strong, you needed to be able to defeat Neji with or without his magic eyes.

He was taller than you, but you couldn't let you be intimidated by the size. He was still a small child, that shouldn't face you.

He let you get in the first blow it seemed like.

But as you tried to hit him, he grabbed your wrist and span around before leaving you flying.

You managed to land on all four and quickly got on your feet again.

But this was no turn-based combat, there was no pause for you, he went on charging at you. Your only chance here came from the fact that Neji had a limited skill-set. You were not facing a 13-year-old Neji with Kaiten and a gentle fist, but an 8-year-old still early in his training.

But no matter your attempts, he was quicker than you and whatever attack you launched his eyes could see and counter it. But he had still not managed to immobilize you back.

Time to play dirty. Forming the clone seals, you summoned nine helpers.

Neji's eyes widen by the sight of ten of you. But he quickly gained composure. His defence was not good enough. Of the nine clones charging at him, he managed to stop three of them. But the remaining six got him to the ground and you were prepared to step in if he dispelled any more. But every limb was held down by at least one clone.

"Good work, no wonder why you're…" but you couldn't hear the last part.

As you dispelled your clones, your vision turned black and you hit the floor.

-x-

"You finally decided to meet me again, I thought you had forgotten about me," Matatabi asked you as soon as you entered her mindscape.

"I don't know how to visit you," you explained to her.

"But did you try?" She asked, her eyes looking straight at you.

"I guess I didn't," you had to admit.

"And what about Tenten and Shikamaru, why have you neglected them. They're easier to visit than me?"

"We only meet up once, we're not really friends?"

"That's just what you like telling yourself. It's too late now, they'll just see you as an untrustworthy friend who never bothers to spend time with them," she said.

"It doesn't matter, I don't need them as friends," you told her, you had others.

"And then Itachi and Shisui, you're spending less and less time with them."

"I've been busy studying and I guess they've been busy too."

"But the one man you shouldn't trust, you're getting closer to. What fucked up kid are you?"

"I don't trust Danzo, I know he's up to no good, but he's my only path to graduate and get stronger."

"You know there is another part to get stronger?" She asked.

"Huh?"

"I can help you, I help my friends, unlike certain rotten kids."

"I'm not rotten!" You cried out.

"I can help you become a better friend too unless you want Itachi and Shisui to abandon you too?"

"I don't," you replied.

"Admitting you've got a problem is the first step to fixing them Sota. You seem to struggle with thinking everyone has a hidden agenda and is trying to trick you," she said.

"What if they are?" You asked because you were certain she had a hidden agenda.

"You're a paranoid Sota, this is your exact problem!" She yelled at you.

"I'm sorry."

She visibly sighed. "Why don't we do a simple trust exercise?"

"Huh?"

"Touch the seal. It's completely safe, they wouldn't secure me with a seal that would break with a simple touch, would they?"

"You're right," you replied.

If you wanted to be her friend you needed to show some goodwill towards her. Put some trust in her. Naruto touched the seal guarding the Kurama's gate without any issues. You said you were going to be her friend, you're going to do it. Not due to some silly nindo, but rather your refusal to get one-upped by a cat, no matter how big.

You stepped forward towards the gate. Water started to rise below your feet lifting you up closer to it.

You put your hand on the piece of paper, careful to not channel any chakra into it in the process.

"See not that difficult kid. Now grab the corner of the seal," she suggested.

Why did the stupid cat have to trick you at every point? No, you weren't going to call her out on that.

"I'm afraid I'll slip and accidentally tear it off," you excused yourself.

"Very well, that's understandable. Just know you've been lied to. You won't die if you release me, you'll only die if I'm being forcefully extracted from you."

More lies, but no reasons to call her out on that. Be friendly with her and maybe she'll be friendly back with some work.

But just as you feared, you lost your footing and you started to fall. The water was gone, same with Matatabi.

-x-

It was like your body was hitting the ground, but that was just reflexes in your body.

"How are you?" You heard someone ask you.

Opening your eyes you saw a familiar face. "Oh, Hiashi," you exclaimed. It was a bit of a surprise that he was here, but it was nice that his relationship with his nephew wasn't that bad at this point. "I was just overdoing it with shadow clones, but I'm fine."

"Oh, you must have mistaken me from my brother. I'm Hizashi, Neji's father. Nice to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for a bit long chapter and that it took some time, but I'll hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> If you liked it, please leave a review. Any review is good short or long.


	5. Chapter 5

"How are you?" You heard someone ask you.

Opening your eyes, you saw a familiar face. "Oh, Hiashi," you exclaimed. It was a bit of a surprise that he was here, but it was nice that his relationship with his nephew wasn't that bad at this point. "I was just overdoing it with shadow clones, but I'm fine."

"Oh, you must have mistaken me from my brother. I'm Hizashi, Neji's father. Nice to meet you."

"How?"

He just looked confused

"You're not supposed to be… alive," you muttered.

"Someone may wish me dead, but I ensure you that I'm perfectly alive," he said.

"I'm sorry,"

Hizashi began to untie his forehead protector and the cage bird seal was revealed.

It was no surprise to you, but you were no less drawn to green ink on his forehead.

Unprompted he began to tell. "It is what separates me from my brother, our chains, the main house's way to control us."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I've heard that you're on the way to becoming a seal master. Think about how your power is being utilized. It may be used on your loved ones. If I could find a way to remove the seal from Neji, I would, damn what the rest of the clan think."

Was he asking you for help? Could you even help him? One thing was for sure, Neji deserved better, much better than his previous life.

"Don't worry, I'll never use what I learn to hurt the people," you smiled at him.

Judging by the smile you got back, it seemed like he approved.

-x-

"Follow me, Danzo told you as you entered the tunnels the next day.

You were lead to a new door, it would be the second room you'd visited down here, ignoring the toilets.

He opened it and motioned for you to step in before him. The room was as big as your own, so perhaps there was some truth in his claim that every room was the same size.

Based on the floor, you could see it was set up like an arena. In one end stood a masked Root member gazing out, looking at no one.

"What do you want?" You asked Danzo.

"I want you to fight him," he said and held out a short tanto.

"I don't know how to use it."

"Improvise. Draw blood and don't get hit. As you're a beginner, they'll go easy on you."

The Root agent drew his sword, a much longer katana, with a blade 3-4 times longer than yours. What was he thinking? The blade was longer than your arm. The one thing you knew about any kind of melee combat, reach was king and you had none.

"No, I cannot do it, I'll only get hurt!" You exclaimed. It was time to take back control and not let Danzo push you around.

"Very well, I'll tell the Hokage that you're not ready. I had hope in you, but that was misplaced. Forget about graduating anytime soon."

"What?!" You called out.

"You cannot avoid a mission because you fear pain. You're not ready."

No… That was not the plan. Getting kicked out of here and be stuck in the academy for years would not be fun. Even if you could find a safe place to talk to Itachi within the village, this was not good.

"I'll do it," you grabbed the sword from Danzo. You didn't want to, but what choice did you have?

You took a closer look at your opponent. It was worse than it first looked like. He was outfitted with the standard ANBU protective wear, which severely limited where you could hit them. You were completely exposed, i.e. fucked. But you had to try. You were shorter than them and their legs were exposed so there was some chance.

If Danzo's goal was to make you hate him, he wasn't doing a bad job.

"No ninjutsu, seals or similar. Only your sword and your body."

You held the sword in front of you as far as you could. There was no sign that you should start, your opponent just walked slowly towards you. You had no idea what to do. Try to block it and counter, maybe?

Before you could reach the sword were right in your face. It cut right above your nose bridge, similar to the familiar scar on Iruka.

Fuck, how could you deal with this speed? To avoid getting hit in the face for real, you put the sword in front of your face to block the next hit.

But your opponent went for your exposed forearm this time.

"Fuck", it wasn't deep, but you clutched it with your left arm to limit the bleeding. You had to think fast. He was to fast to block, you needed to dodge.

You rolled to the side to get out of his immediate striking range and and to take advantage of your smaller size.

You had to put some distance between you and rethink your approach, so you ran towards the other side of the room. But you didn't get far before you could feel the blade slicing across your back.

"Auch!" You cried out falling to your knees. What the hell could you do? Even standing up would just give them a chance strike again.

But sitting there wasn't the solution either, as you got hit in the back again.

"Stand up," Danzo commanded you.

You had to do it, you got on your feet and turned towards the Root-agent again.

The tip of their sword was already coloured by your blood, and you knew it wouldn't end yet. You couldn't reach them, but maybe you didn't have to. As quick as you could without revealing the plan, you hurled your tanto towards their legs.

Before you could react to the situation, they had reached down and grabbed it by the handle. Perfect execution without touching the spinning blade.

"Fuck…" This was your chance and now you were without a weapon.

They quickly threw it back at you, handle hitting your forehead perfectly. It hurt, but it could have been a lot worse.

Before you could think about your next move, you felt the blade hitting your arm again. Still shallow cuts, but it hurt nevertheless.

You ducked down and tried kicking your sword away from them so you could grab it easier. Though you were welcomed by a kick in your guts sending you a few feet away.

He stepped on the handle of your sword, making it even harder for you to retrieve it.

You could see through this trick, there was no need for you to go after it while being guarded like this. If you stepped away from him the Root would follow. You had to stop thinking about this as a sword fight, it was a game. A cat playing with his prey, and you were the small mouse in this scenario.

The cat released you only to chase you again. So how could you take advantage of this?

You did as you tried earlier and ran towards the other end of the room. Again you were struck down, but you tried to keep the pain away and just got up and ran again, but this time in a different direction. You needed to clear the path between you and your blade so you could try to win this.

You were hopeful as you were approaching it without getting hit. But out of nowhere, your opponent was in front of you, striking once in front of your face without hitting anything, but instinctively you put your arms in front of your face to block and on the next hit, the pain gave away your mistake pretty fast.

"Aaah!" You cried out. This was hopeless, there was only one thing to do.

"I give up!" you called out to be sure Danzo heard you.

"There is no giving up in a real fight, continue."

"Please, keep me from graduating if you want, I cannot do this."

"You're not getting out of here before you win. If you're incapable of fighting, you'll be patched up in here till you can give it another chance."

What did he want from you? You would get curb stomped no matter what.

Thinking back to your spars, was there anything you could do?

Wait there was, against Itachi you used the walls to your advantage.

Working through your pain you ran towards the closest wall and began to climb it till you reached the ceiling. You couldn't say for sure, but it looked like your opponent couldn't hit you without getting up here themselves. You could use this.

You moved right above where your sword was lying and then sat there for a moment. For the first time in the match, your opponent let you breathe properly. But as you got a bit more relaxed, the pain started to surge again.

"Please, let this plan work…" you muttered under your breath.

Your opponent got tired of waiting and picked up your tanto. "Fuck"

With a flick of their wrist, they threw it at you.

But you were high enough up to gain some reaction time. With your right hand, you tried to grab it as it reached you. You were aiming for the handle but hit the blade. It dug into your hand and your grip quickly loosened. You had to react quickly to grab it with your other hand before you drop it to your hand. You were bleeding profusely and trying to close your grip only lead to surges of pain, but you pushed through it. You had your sword back, but you were set back further than when you started. You were still crap with your left arm. Your disadvantage was just getting worse.

You were not safe up there, you hadn't noticed that the Root agent had jumped into the air to hit your leg before the sword had dug into your body and you were falling back down.

It was not a smooth fall. Despite the floor being made out of dirt, it hurt badly.

The longer you fought the weaker you became. Trying to stand up was a challenge in itself now with your leg.

There was only one thing left, one final move of desperation. You picked out your target, hit upper leg was your best shot.

Taking a heavy breath in, steeling yourself against the pain, letting the adrenaline do the job and charge at them. It didn't matter that you were left completely open, they'd hit you no matter what. Being evasive was hopeless, it was impossible to be on the defensive when you couldn't even see the attack coming. No, you had to be on the offensive.

You felt no pain as you closed in on them. You were too focused to be bothered by that. You had overcome pain, now you need to overcome your opponent.

You were close enough you were for sure, your eyes on their leg and with your best of your ability to strike them. You couldn't impact as much force with your left arm, but when you saw the tiny drop of blood at the end of your sword, you knew it was enough, it was over, you had won.

Then the pain came back, your stomach hurt like hell. You looked down only to see the Katana impaling your stomach. Everything hurt more and more and you were now unable to stand on your injured leg. You slid down the sword and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

-x-

When you wake up again the pain was unbearable. The floor was wet, from your blood perhaps?

You lied down on the ground so your injured leg could rest on the other.

"Good evening Sota, I almost feel bad for you if it wasn't for the fact you asked for it."

Why did the stupid cat always have to behave like this?

"I didn't ask for this, I didn't want this to happen," you muttered back, hoping her stupid giant ears would hear you despite your reduced volume.

"Danzo gave you the choice to back out, and you didn't take it. So I'd say you just deserve what coming at you."

"Everything hurts, please help me," you cried.

"I'm not sure if you deserve any help. If I bail you out from any stupid decision will you ever learn? I warned you against Danzo, but did you listen?"

"I'm sorry, just please," you mumbled.

"I wonder if the others have to deal with such an impossible kid like you."

"I feel like I'm dying, why am I still injured in here, I wasn't last time?" You asked.

"You're not dying, you're too important for them for that. You know you're injured this time, that's why you're injured in here. I guess I'll help you."

"Really?" you said picking your head up and looking at her.

"I might have been a bit too harsh on you, but I do it because I care, a good friend doesn't let their friend commit the same mistakes over and over again. I'll push some of my chakra into you, you'll feel a bit of a tug and then you need to draw on it as your seal prevent me from using my chakra without your consent."

"Thanks,"

"I'll bring you back in a moment, you'll feel something in a few seconds."

-x-

Gone were the lake and Matatabi, and you were now on a bed somewhere underground you guessed.

There was no feeling of bleeding, just cloth pressing upon your body and the same pain as before, though a bit subdued. You had been patched up and given new clothes by the looks of it.

You looked down to see if you could see your midriff. If that bastard put you into the root clothes…

But he didn't, everything was well covered by your black shirt and while your black pants looked like something from the uniform, it wasn't that bad.

The tug Matatabi promised sprung to form inside you, and as she instructed, you began to pull it through your body. The pain immediately began to reside and was replaced by a soft pleasing feeling. The more you pulled on it the better everything became, and you saw a blue cloud forming around you followed by shouting. She was a good cat after all.

You continued to pull on her chakra for a few more seconds before something hit your forehead and everything shut down. The good feeling got replaced by pain again, but you could feel some noticeable changes.

You stared at the Root in front of you. They may have thought that she was trying to escape, and put a seal on you, but they were wrong, she just wanted to help you. Or perhaps they knew and didn't want her to help you, but rather that you stayed in pain?

The Root agent left you again to you and your aching body.

But you weren't alone for long as soon after Danzo appeared in your vision.

"You're awake I see," he said. "I'm disappointed by your horrible performance, I had expected more of you."

You glared up at him.

"But still you passed. I hope to see more effort from you in the future. Is that clear?"

You continued staring.

"Is that clear?" He repeated with a raised voice.

"Yes," you got out.

"Very well, your teachers have been informed that you're not able to attend your classes while you're recovering. You will not be served food before tomorrow. Failure has consequences."

With that, he left you again.

You should stay away Danzo. Everyone was seeing that apart from you, even your clones realized it. If you could just figure out another way to study Fuuinjutsu, you didn't need him anymore.

Now you just needed to wait here till you got let out again. Your stomach was rumbling at the same time as it was hurting from the impaling.

But there wouldn't be any food today, and there was nothing to pass time with, so you just had to try to rest. Ignore the pain, ignore the hunger, and just try to sleep.

You were tossing around in your bed for what felt like hours. Things weren't getting better, just worse.

"Sota," you heard someone whisper to you. Your nostrils picked up the smell of food from behind and you rolled around to see who it was.

Another Root was crouching down at you holding out a bowl filled with meat and vegetables in some sort of broth. It smelled nice, that was enough for you.

"I'm not allowed this, but I couldn't watch you suffer like this. Just please don't tell Danzo anything, it will get me in real problems."

"Don't worry, I'm not telling on you," you smiled at them.

"Do you need help to eat or are your hand better now?"

You tried stretching your fingers in and out, things did seem better.

"I'll try on my own," you said and grabbed the chopsticks and began eating. But it didn't go so well. Your grip locked up, and you dropped both the food and the sticks. The Root was quick to grab them before they hit the dirty floor.

Getting feed was a bit embarrassing, but you just had to accept it. It was tasty, and you felt bad when you had to stop eating.

"I'm full, thanks for the food," you told them.

"You know, if there is something you want to talk about you can ask me. Your secret is safe with me, I cannot tell on you without implicating myself."

"What's your name?" You asked them.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you."

"Can I see your face?" You then asked.

"We're not allowed to reveal ourselves without permission, I'm sorry."

It was worth a shot. There was much that bothered you. And they seemed nice.

"I'm unsure about Danzo, I feel I shouldn't come back to this place."

"Why is that?" They asked.

"Today, I thought I was going to die. I did my best but all I did was to make Danzo unhappy. I just fear everything will get worse and I should get out while I can."

"Danzo can be a bit harsh I know, but it's a valuable lesson. He should perhaps just go about it in another way though. I remember well the first time I thought I was going to die. Bad intelligence put me up against a much stronger enemy, but thanks to Danzo I was prepared. I had dealt with the stress before and managed to figure a way to cope with such a situation and get out alive. I did lose the fight in the end but managed to keep standing till reinforcement arrived, it ended with us winning. If that had been the first time I'd experienced that kind of dread and hopelessness, I wouldn't be alive now. You may be lucky and never experience something like that yourself, but it is better to be prepared than to depend on luck, don't you think?"

"I guess you have got a point," you said. "But why a sword, I don't see how that will complement my skills very well."

"It's not about the weapon, but throwing you at deep waters. Though it wouldn't hurt learning a bit, even if you're not using swords yourself, it will make it easier to face off swordsmen later on."

"I'm not sure, I'm not sure how comfortable I'm with them after this."

"You better not let Danzo hear that, or he'll push you to you are comfortable. But don't worry, your secrets are safe with me."

"Thanks."

"Things will get better from here on and I'll keep a watch over you, okay?"

"I guess."

"Good, I have to leave now."

Things were going in your direction, Matatabi seems to have turned around and become more helpful, and you've gained yourself an ally. Danzo was still an ass though.

-x-

You had managed to hide your injuries from your class, now was the time to see your friends again.

"Sota, you're alright?" You turned your head towards Shisui.

"Yeah, I'm fined," you responded.

"What happened there?" He pointed to the bandaids on your nose.

"Nothing happened."

"Nothing?" He asked. You didn't like the look on his eyes and you couldn't exactly decipher it. Worry was the obvious guess, but there was more than that, and it bothered you that you couldn't read him. Was he annoyed by you?

"I can't tell," you replied.

"Fine…" Shisui paused. "Do you want to come over, Itachi is trying out some new dish he learnt on a mission?"

"Sure," you said and followed him.

-x-

As you took off your shoes and put your slippers, your limbs were starting to hurt a bit and your bandages were getting uncomfortable.

Inside the door, you could smell Itachi's cooking. If it tasted as good as it smelled, you could understand why Itachi wanted to share his experience.

Before you could greet Itachi, Shisui was dragging you into the bathroom.

"Off with your jumper," Shisui commanded.

"Why?"

"I saw the bandages," he stated.

You sighed and took off your jumper and your t-shirt. Exposing your upper body.

"Wait here a bit."

Why did he have to see this?

A moment later he was back with a first-aid kit and some other stuff under his arm.

"Do you have bandages other places too?"

"Yes, on my legs," you said.

"Alright, off with your pants too.

You obeyed him, there was no use protesting.

"I'm going to take off your bandages and clean your scars, okay?"

"Okay,"

It wasn't really a question, he quickly began to unravel the white cloth. It was a nice feeling to get the constricting bandages off and get some air on your skin.

You could finally scratch your itching skin.

"Be careful, don't scratch your wounds, okay?"

You nodded.

"What's going on here?" Itachi asked from the door.

"Take a look at him," Shisui said.

"Oh…"

"I'm sure you've seen this before lots of times on the battlefield," you said.

"Usually we don't need to hit our opponents this many times to take them down," Shisui answered for both of them.

"My sensei," Itachi tried to say.

"Your sensei was a sick fuck that enjoyed hurting you, there was a reason your father made sure you'd never see him again. Itachi, how many of his lessons have you given Sota?" Shisui asked.

"A few, Sota was fine, mostly," Itachi said.

Shisui sighed. "Just stop it right, don't do anything towards Sota you wouldn't do against Sasuke, okay Itachi?"

Itachi nodded.

-x-

The next day was the first time you had seen Genma in a long time.

"Hi Sota, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. But remember what you promised me?" You asked him.

"No…" he replied.

_'Senpai'_ you motioned with your mouth.

"Are you sure that you've gotten better than me already?"

"Maybe," you replied. To be fair, you had no idea how good he really was and you felt your progression hadn't been that good. But it was fun to tease him.

"Alright Senpai, the Hokage wants to see you, do you want me to follow you?"

"It's okay," you replied and walked towards the tower.

But someone was following you.

"I said you didn't need to follow me," you turned to him.

"I'm going the same way anyway, so why not walk together?"

"So it wasn't really a choice, just you being polite?"

"You can say that yes."

"Do you know why the Hokage wants to talk to me?"

"Not really. So how exactly is your Fuuinjutsu going?

"I'm working on it, though I guess I lack a bit of inspiration. It is hard to scale things up as the bigger some seals get the more space is taken just for the connections, and I still don't know how to store attacks efficiently. Do you have any ideas?"

"Is senpai asking _me_ for advice?"

"Come on," you said back.

"You started it by being a brat. But no, I don't have any idea what you're working with even. You just need to be patient. You're still quite young, you've plenty of time to get better in the future. Just improve on what you can improve on."

"I guess you're right. I just feel I need to be prepared. I'm going to be genin soon and need to be able to defend myself properly."

"You're just seven, sure it isn't a bit too early?"

"Six, when did you graduate?"

"I was about ten-year-old I think. You're not going to be dealing with missions that are too dangerous for you. If everything goes to plan. You could all be sleeping during your first battle and your sensei should be able to deal with any threat easily."

"I would hope to be useful on my team and not just holding them back,"

"Part of being a genin is to learn, so don't worry too much about now being able to contribute, okay?"

"Okay."

As you got to the reception outside the Hokage's office, Genma walked up to the secretary "guarding" the office.

"You can go inside, the Hokage is ready for you," the secretary told you.

You nodded and walked into the office.

"Nice to see you Uzumaki, sit down please."

You felt a bit exposed in the chair. Was this the first time you meet this man? You and Naruto were both Jinchuuriki, but it kind of felt like the two of you were treated quite differently.

"Now, I understand you've been training with Danzo for the last months, has everything gone fine?" The Hokage asked you.

Not at all, but you couldn't tell the him that.

"Yes," you answered.

"Have you been threatened or forced into doing something you've not wanted to do?"

"No," you lied.

"I heard you got injured again, what happened?" He asked.

"I was practising sword fighting against one of Danzo's agents."

"You seemed to be hit quite a lot, why didn't you quit earlier?"

"I…" what could you say. You did not want to piss of Danzo. He might get a slap on the wrist for doing this to you, but you wouldn't get away that easily.

"I wanted to win. If I were a jounin defending my genin, I couldn't just run away, I would have to stay put defending them till the end."

"Very well. Seems like my worries were unfounded. Just one last thing, how are you doing with your dental hygiene, do you remember to brush morning and evening?"

What a weird question coming from the Hokage, but you just had to deal with it.

"I might be a bit sloppy sometimes," you admitted. Electrical toothbrushes was another thing you missed in this world.

"Let me take a look," he said.

"You don't have to, I'm fine."

"I insist," he said and walked up to you. "Open your mouth."

In his right hand, he was holding a metal rod that he used to look around.

"Hmm, it doesn't look too bad."

Then from nowhere, you felt a strong pricking on your tongue and you flinched back a notch.

"I'm sorry, my hands aren't always as steady as they once were."

"It's okay," you replied.

"I guess there is no reason to hold you back anymore then, off you go."

That night you made sure to spend extra long with your nightly brushing. It was not the start of a new habit, just a temporary arrangement after being judged on your teeth.

And within the white foam, you noticed something black on your tongue. You filled your mouth with water to clear out any toothpaste.

You stuck your tongue out to see better, and right in the middle was a black X. He tricked you, he wasn't worried about your dental hygiene, of course, he wasn't. He used the opportunity to put a fucking seal on you.

There was only one person who could help you now, and you hated to say it, but you really had to see Danzo now.

-x-

You had told the Root-agent that you wanted to see Danzo, claiming it was important, as in couldn't wait till tomorrow important. So now all you needed to do was to wait.

You might have exaggerated, but you were technically a child and should be given a pass. You were shivering a bit inside your room. You hadn't thought about getting properly dressed before leaving, thus still in your t-shirt. Perhaps you should bring some more clothes down here for situations like this? It was getting colder and colder outside, so ensuring warm clothes were important.

But at last, you saw something moving on the wall, and you really hated to admit it, but you were kind of glad to see Danzo now.

"So what's wrong?" He asked.

You struck out your tongue to show him.

"Hiruzen?" he asked.

You nodded.

"What does it do?" You asked.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Can you remove it?

"I need to see the Hokage about it first, now go home."

"Is it doing something bad?"

"Probably," Danzo replied.

That was all the answers you could get tonight, no need to keep Danzo awake any more. Not that that bastard slept, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Today was a close call, you almost lost to Sasuke. Bad sleep and anxiousness did that to you.

You wanted, no you needed to know what the damn seal was doing to you.

You should perhaps do something constructive while you waited for Danzo, but all you wanted now was to rest your head on your desk and just wait.

You had almost fallen asleep as you noticed the door open.

"Sit up," Danzo commanded. "I've talked to Hiruzen, and got some answers."

"Oh?"

"He claims it was to prevent me from putting my seals of my own on you," Danzo explained.

"He's lying, right? Or else he would just have told me?"

"Yes. Don't let yourself get fooled by his old grandfather facade. You seem to have a good sense of judgement, trust that."

"I will," you replied. You could of course not trust Danzo either, but that didn't mean everything he said was false. It was your logic that brought you to the conclusion that Hiruzen was lying, not Danzo. "You can remove it right?"

"It will take me some time."

"Thanks, can you teach me how to remove seals?" You asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"The Hyuuga would try to have you killed if you go around removing the caged bird seal," Danzo said.

Did he know about your talk with Hizashi?

"I wasn't thinking about that, I just want to learn," you replied.

"Perhaps when you show you can be trusted."

He couldn't stop you from trying on you own, you should be sure to observe him when he'd be trying to remove that on your tongue.

-x-

"Sota let me talk to you a bit," Shisui asked you as you were walking down the road to your apartment.

"What is it?" you glanced up at him.

"Can we sit down for a moment?" He asked and pointed to a nearby bench.

You nodded and sat down alongside him.

"I know it is your birthday tomorrow, but a mission came up. It will be me and my father, it is a chance for us to get closer again, we've fallen a bit out in the last years. So this isn't a chance I want to give up. But Itachi will be here and make your birthday a great time."

Looking at his face you weren't sure what to think. You had an ugly feeling about this. Like something was not right. You were watching his calm breath being made visible in the cold winter air. Happy wasn't the right word to describe his face. Determined, no... Reading faces was not easy. You were left just watching him till you could find the right words.

"Be careful," you finally said as the first flakes of snow hit his face.

He smiled at you and folded an arm around you. "Don't worry, missions rarely go wrong, both I and my father are strong enough to handle this."

"Just get home safely will you?" You looked up at him.

"You almost worry about me more than Itachi does. Keep a watch on him that he doesn't do anything stupid will you?"

You nodded and just sat there and watched the snow falling for a while before he had to get going. The snow was beautiful, but it could also be a detriment for a ninja. You could just hope you were overreacting.

-x-

Today was your birthday, becoming seven wasn't a big thing, it wasn't even your first time becoming seven years old.

Outside the snow had made a thick layer, so you better look for some decent clothes. You were pretty sure someone had shipped a box of winter clothes not too long ago.

Scarf, a woollen hat and gloves should do, you didn't want to get too overheated. Along with some decent shoes.

The cold wind hit your face as you left your apartment. Should you go and visit Itachi already or wait till he got you, you didn't want to ruin any surprise if he had planned one.

Genin was running around shovelling snow away from people's front yard. Would you even be doing stuff like that when you graduated?

A snowball hit your back, and as you turned around you were grabbed into a hug.

"Happy Birthday Sota," Itachi greeted you.

"Thanks," you muffled through his embrace.

"Come with me, I've something I want to show you."

You walked together to the Uchiha compound but not to Itachi's house, but instead, you arrived at a snow cave.

"What do you think? I felt it could be fun and we get more privacy than at home with mother and father."

You may be a child now, but you couldn't say you had that childish joy inside where snow caves were super exciting. It would be better if you could just stay inside and be warm. But you were going to be a ninja very soon, you couldn't complain about the cold or Danzo would dump you naked into an icy river till you got used to it.

"It's nice."

"I'm glad you liked it, just keep your shoes on no need to take them off here," he said and entered inside.

Inside you could see a smiling Naruto stirring into a pot. Taking a look at his clothing it became apparent that it was much hotter inside than you first realized, so you took off your jacket and joined Naruto in sitting there in your t-shirt.

"Harry Birthday," Naruto said and walked up to you and hugged you.

"Thanks Naruto," you replied.

"So who of you want some hot chocolate?" Itachi asked.

"Me!" Naruto called out with his hand stretched out.

Here you go, Itachi said and filled a cup from the pot who was hanging over the fire.

"I'd take one too thanks," you said.

A short moment later Itachi handed you your cup before serving himself.

"How does it feel being seven years old?"

"Like being six, I don't feel any different," you replied.

"So, do you want to open your gifts?" Itachi asked, "Or do you want to wait for later?"

"Let us start now," Naruto said.

"Naruto, shouldn't we let Sota decide?" Itachi smiled at him.

"Oh... Sorry Sota."

"That's fine Naruto, we can start now."

Naruto grabbed something from behind him and handed to you.

An envelope with "Happy Birthday Sota" written on it with some sloppy kana, but this wasn't the time to help Naruto with his writing.

"Open it!"

"Patience Naruto," Itachi said.

You carefully opened the flap on the end, as ripping it open could destroy the content. And then grabbed the content out from it.

Inside were multiple gift cards for dango.

"Thanks Naruto, I love it," you said.

"I'm glad you liked it," he smiled and got up to give you another hug. "I was going to give you some for Ramen, but Itachi told me I should give you a gift based on what you liked and not what I liked. He's pretty smart you know."

"Itachi can be stupid sometimes, or at least that's what Shisui tells me."

Naruto started to laugh.

"That's not a nice way to act towards someone who's hosting your birthday party," Itachi said in a round of mock hurt before laughing at his joke. He really was a cute kid at this point, as he had not yet started to grow out his hair. Further cementing his more innocent look.

"Don't worry Itachi, we both know that Shisui is the stupid one."

"All is forgiven, here this is from me," he said and handed you a larger box.

You set it on the ground and opened it. Inside was a dark green bag, or was it brown? A bit hard to hell.

"It's for your sealing equipment. Open up and you can see."

It was easy to open and close, it looked like the strap was held in place with a small magnet.

And inside you could see what Itachi meant. it had multiple square compartments to put stacks of sealing tags or scrolls.

"I like it," you said.

"Thanks, there is even some blank pieces of paper and room for ink and a brush in the top in case you need to do some on the fly stuff.

"Thanks," you smiled at him.

"Shisui left you a package too, he said it was something he had found while on a mission," Itachi said and handed you another box.

On the top, there was a letter taped to it, you took it and started to read.

"Happy Birthday Sota,

I'm sorry I can't be there for you, but Itachi and Naruto be there with you I hope. Given that I wrote this before I left, I can't say for certain, but everything is good and well with me and my father. Our trip to our destination was uneventful and nothing unexpected happened. Or at least I hope, I can tell you more when I'm back.

My gift might not be as practical as Itachi's, but I hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless. On a mission near Hidden Stone, I encounter a ninja who used small clay golems for defences in a cave he hid in. I don't know how these work, but I'm sure you can work it out. There is also a book on clay working that I hope can be of use.

Now I've to go back to the mission as my father is waiting for me, have fun and tell Itachi to not worry about me. All is fine here."

"Shisui should know that writing in a letter in advance won't stop me from worrying."

"He'll be fine Itachi," you said. "Most missions are pretty safe, aren't they?"

"Nothing is ever completely safe, but yes, everything should be fine if everything goes after the plan. So you'll have nothing to fear about becoming a genin."

"You're becoming a genin already?" Naruto asked, his eyes getting big.

"Yes, that's the plan. I and Sasuke will take an exam in a few days to see if we're ready. And if I pass, I'll get to be a real ninja and will start doing missions."

"What kind of stuff, saving princesses and visiting new places?" He asked.

"No, as a fresh genin you'll mostly do different chores around the village till you can show that you can work together as a team and follow orders properly," Itachi explained.

"That sounds so boring, I thought ninja got to do fun stuff," Naruto pouted.

"Haven't you seen all the genin shovelling snow around today?" You asked him.

"Yeah…" Naruto muttered before taking another look at the present from Shisui. "What's inside?"

"Let me see," you said and opened up the lid. Inside was as promised several clay figurines which you put on the ground in front of you. The promised book, 'Working With Clay' with rusty brown stains. And even a bow and some arrows he forgot to mention in his letter. Attached to it was another note.

"I got a nice idea I want to show with this when I'm back ツ." You read for the others to hear.

"Why did he give you those clay things?" Naruto asked.

"It is so I can learn from them and maybe do something useful with it, ninja stuff."

"Oh, is it similar to this flute I got from Sasuke," Naruto asked and pulled up the gift you've given him. He had it tied around his neck like a lucky amulet, which was normally hidden under his t-shirt. "I can use it to blow fire like Itachi, it's the best thing ever."

"Yeah, it's kind of like that," you said.

"Cool, so you can make those clay men breathe fire?" He asked making a blowing expression.

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll try," you replied.

"Tell me if you need any help Sota," Itachi offered.

"I will."

"Now that the gifts are over with, do you want to play something," Itachi asked and held out a deck of card.

"Yeah!" Naruto said. "We can play 'Hidden Spy'"

"Shouldn't Sota get to decide Naruto?"

"It's fine with me," you replied.

It was a fun but simple game. It was about creating multiple pairs with the cards while avoiding being left with a foreign spy as the last card in your hand. You could be left with your own spy as the last card, but that didn't matter.

It was overall a fun day, later Itachi surprised you with ramen which made Naruto quite happy, with a solid amount of dango as snacks afterwards. Now it was just waiting for Shisui to come home.

-x-

On the way to the academy next day it was raining and much of the snow had disappeared through the night. Typical snow, it stayed for a day before going away.

You hurried to the academy, not wanting to get too wet. When you arrived in the classroom most of the others had already arrived and there wasn't long till the last students joined you, Naruto included.

"Good morning children. Today will be a bit different you'll have your first written exam. Don't worry kids. The results here are mostly there to see how everyone has improved and where you all struggle so we can help you.

"But that doesn't mean you shouldn't take this seriously. Sasuke and Sota, this will affect your graduation exam, so do your best. For the rest of you, while failing won't have any consequences, not taking it seriously will. And no cheating, you will get caught and kicked out of the exam immediately, then you will have to retake it another day."

Consequences, what did he mean about that?

"You can start as soon as you've received the test, if anyone forgot to bring something to write with, please raise your hand and you'll be handed a pencil when we take our rounds"

Soon after a group of genin came in and helped Iruka handing out. You reached down in your backpack for a pencil and waited for you to be handed your test. You looked towards the genin handling your row. And he sure was familiar.

"Something wrong?" The boy asked with a smile while handing your test.

Those glasses, that was Kabuto, why was he here? "No, I'm sorry," you mumbled.

It was time for the first question.

_You suspect your sensei is a traitor, what do you do?_

This was easy.

' _I'll tell someone higher up I can trust and pretend I don't suspect my sensei, while still being observant about their behaviour.'_

And not let myself be tricked by them to steal an important scroll.

' _Your teammate is wounded during a mission, but you must bring back a scroll before the time limit is done. What do you do with your wounded teammate?'_

There sounded to be a more right answer here, but you were not going there.

' _There are several options here._

_If time is critical make the fastest leave the group with the scroll while the rest protect the injured teammate._

_Have the fastest member in the group carry the injured member and carry on as fast as we can_

_But in the end. Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash! If I'm going to be called trash either way, I'd rather break the rules! And if that somehow makes me anything less than a real shinobi, then I'll crush all of the so-called "real" shinobi!'_

As you wrote the last kana, your thoughts got to Obito. Was there anything you could do about him? Probably not, you just had to figure out how to defend yourself against him, Pain and all the other endgame bosses.

You looked back at Kabuto again.

And him...

You turned over to question 3.

' _You've been injured during the mission on the way to your target. However, it's not a serious injury. Should you tell your teammates?'_

This was much easier and you started to quickly scribble down your answer.

' _I'll swallow my pride and tell my sensei right away so he knows it can be aware if something happens.'_

There was a few more of these kinds of questions before going over to more conventional questions about history and other stuff you'd learn the past year.

When you handed in your answers, it looked like most were still present. Naruto was not having a good time you noticed, but he would manage it.

-x-

It wasn't looking good outside, heavy rain and quite nasty wind. But bad weather wasn't an excuse to not attend the academy. The sky looked dark and inhospitable, but you had to go.

Luckily you had proper clothes in your wardrobe, so you just went back in and got dressed properly.

On the way you say some of the other kids from the academy getting distracted by some big puddles. You kind of wanted to jump in with them. But despite this body, you weren't child enough for that kind of stuff, even if it looked fun.

You wondered what Itachi would have done at your age. Would he be serious or give in to the temptation. Truth to be told, getting wet wasn't that fun, so better just walk past it.

.

The entry to the academy was a mess with wet shoes everywhere. But you found a suitable place to park yours and used your ninja skills to jump onto a bit of flood to put on your indoors shoes before getting to the classroom.

If you were lucky, you wouldn't have any classes outside today. But was luck your strongest suit?

Iruka's class was quite boring today as always. Talking about some battle where Konoha had made great advances in one of the previous wars. But you weren't the only one getting bored in these classes, even Iruka seemed to be bored of his own history classes. Not weird given that he'd probably heard this kind of stuff every year since he became a teacher. And then the years he was a student himself.

A big flash of light could be seen from the windows. You didn't know how it happened, but when the rumble from the thunder reached your ears, you were somehow under your desk clutching your head.

What was going on? Everything was suddenly silent.

"Sota, is everything fine?" Iruka asked.

"Yes, I just fell," you explained.

"Right, can you try sitting up again?"

"Yes," you said before another much worse rumble reached your ears. At this point, your body was trembling and you tried to hide your head in your lap.

"There is nothing to be afraid of Sota, you're safe inside here."

"I know," your voice was shaking for some unexplained reason. "I don't know what's going on."

"Alright Sota, just sit there if you want, I'll just continue,"

It was fine for a while, and you tried to listen to his lesson to block out all other worry and it worked, at least till the next crackle could be heard. And you started to mumble involuntary "Please... stop..." your voice was not very loud but it could still be heard. Tears filled your eyes as you could feel the wetness around your eyes.

A pair of arms embraced itself around you. "It's okay Sota, even badass ninja can be afraid," Naruto tried to calm you down. You wanted to just get up but you couldn't.

"I know, I know," you muttered to your best ability.

And then another strike hit and your brain were shutting off more and more of what happened around you. Naruto was gone, Iruka's voice was gone. The rain hitting the windows where gone. You were finally at peace.

You could sit like this for hours, just focusing on your breath in and out as nothing else existed around you. But the spell was broken when you feel your body being lifted.

"Thanks for getting me, I'll take him home and take care of him," you heard Itachi telling Iruka.

-x-

The next day you were back down in the underground tunnels.

You had surprisingly got a gift from Danzo too, you were now allowed to walk in and out of your room at your own decision. No longer needing to have a guard open it for you.

It was time to take a closer look at the gift from Shisui. According to him, the golems had targeted him so there had to be some kind of control mechanism. You just needed to find it.

You carefully started to disassemble one of the golems and you found two kinds of seals hidden inside connected with wires. You had no ideas that you could even do it.

So one controlling the other, made perfect sense. The ones placed on the primitive gears inside was clearly rotating them which you were able to confirm by channelling tiny amounts of chakra through the wire.

The weapon system of it was quite inefficient, the head had room for a spring-loaded kunai who were now gone, probably targeting Shisui who cleverly had dodged it. If you were going to use this yourself, you'd definitely use something else inside it, and Naruto's suggestion of fire would be perfect.

For the other seal, you knew it had something to do with aiming at a target, but you could not recognize any of the parts, apart from the obvious of course, but none of the core mechanics. Activating the targeting seal of one of the non-dismantled golems did nothing.

"Shadow clone Jutsu," you called out and as soon as a clone appear you pointed at it and told the golem to attack, but the head didn't move an inch.

"Sorry, I'm just testing out something," you told it.

"Can I look?" It asked.

You nodded and the clone got next to you and started smelling the seal.

"What are you doing?" You asked it.

"We've never tried smelling them, so maybe it could give us some hints," it said.

"And?"

"Nothing, just smells old cave, I can lick it if you want?"

"No, you'll just risk ruining it," you sighed. Your clone was creative sure, but not in the way you'd like. "Let us just give it some time. We can still use this with ninja wire."

"What's the point, you can just use any fire scrolls by themselves?" It asked.

Hmm.. good point.

"Wait, you use it while you're hiding somewhere, and then control the golem while they can't see you."

"Oh… that's pretty smart," you replied.

"But why are you even bothering with ninja wire, can't you just control it remotely like with explosive tags?" It asked.

"I guess there is only one way to find out," and folding your hands into a seal to dispel the clone.

"No wait, I can't help you," the clone interrupted.

"Sorry, but I only have one set up brushes," you said and made the motions to dispel it again.

"You just got another set of brushes from Shisui," it said, the voice was getting angry. "If you don't want me here, just say it, I'm not playing your games."

Clones were annoying. But you didn't want to tell it that you didn't need its help either so you fished out the keys from your pocket and threw it at it. "Catch, go get the stuff."

Why were you doing this? You should be accepting your clones help, not reject them. You shook your head in frustration over yourself. You were unable to gain their memories, but that didn't mean you couldn't benefit from their help.

You were almost done with a copy of the modified seal with a soaking wet clone stepped inside, carrying your seal bag.

"We need to get a fireplace inside so we can get dried in cases like this," it said.

"I need a kiln, but I'm not making one now. If you're freezing go get some dry clothes, there should be some here."

It was time to be somewhat nice to your clone, wouldn't be good if they hated your guts if you needed them on a mission.

So while they were getting dressed you put the finishing touches on the seal to give them some privacy in the process.

"You're done?" It asked while it was peeking over your shoulder. It had left its wet clothes in a pile on the floor. They'd disappear anyway when it dispelled so it didn't matter too much.

You nodded and replaced the old seal on one the dismantled golem for a new one and started channelling chakra. The gear just twitched for a moment.

"I guess it doesn't work, so we'll have to use ninja wire," the clone sighted. "We should ask Itachi tomorrow for some."

"I'm sorry for being mean to you, I don't know what I'm doing sometimes," you said hoping the clone wouldn't see through your thin excuse.

"It is okay," it shrugged.

You started yawning. "I think it's time to go home."

"Don't dispel me, let me just stay here for a while," it said.

"What's wrong with getting dispelled it's not like death right? Because if that's the case I'm not going to use this Jutsu anymore."

"it's more like sleep, but there is no fun sleeping all the time."

You could understand that sentiment.

"So you remember stuff?"

"Yes. I'm not sure if I remember things because I retain my memories or because I remember you remembering it."

"What about when there is more of you, are you all different people, or do you feel like you're the same?"

"The same, the memories from you feel like as if it's from another person, but those from the others feels like me. I'd rather not think about it too much, it makes the brain hurt," it chuckled.

"Okay, good night then, if you want to work on something just go ahead," you said and left the room.

You were quick to notice how your clone had gotten that wet. It was a lot more stormy outside than when you had arrived earlier. You were not quite keen to walk into the bad weather. You just stood inside watching until the sky flashed and you started shaking and when the quake came, you fell to the ground but was caught by someone behind you.

"Is everything okay Sota?" the figure asked you.

"Yes, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid," you started to mumble.

"Don't worry, I'm your friend, remember me? I gave you the soup. I won't tell Danzo anything."

"Thanks," you replied and went crawled further inside while you still had some semblance of control left. The magic of the entrance ensured that any sound and view of the outside quickly disappeared.

"If you want you can sleep here, I get you a bed if you want?" They suggested.

"What would Danzo say, I don't want him to know that I'm afraid of thunder, he'll just make me face my fears till I'm not afraid anymore, I don't think I can handle that," you said.

"Sota, I'll just tell him that you want to sleep here so you can spend more time studying fuuinjutsu without needing to go home. I'm your friend, your secrets are safe with me, you don't trust me?" They asked.

"I do," you mumbled, it would be good to lose your only real ally down here. "I'm sorry. Thanks for your help" You looked up and smiled at them.

If they smiled back you couldn't tell, masks kind of hid their emotions, even without the mask, they'd probably be trained to not smile. But they were nice, that was all that mattered.

You went back to your room while they were getting the bed.

Your clone didn't notice that you were coming back, it was too occupied with something else on the desk.

"Change of plans, I'm staying the night," you told it.

It turned their head towards you, "Oh. Bad news, you know that helping voice right. I don't have it, I've been trying to work on this, but I've gotten no guidance like I remember you've gotten, just nothing. So I might not be as useful as I'd hoped" The clone looked down in the desk clearly disappointed.

"Hey, it's okay. There is plenty you can do, I'm sure you can still figure out stuff based on what I've already worked out. What are you working on?"

"Being able to more effectively store offensive attacks so we can use absorption seals as an effective defence."

"Yeah I kind of forgot about that, I'm happy that you bring it up again," you said.

Behind you, a group of Root agents entered carrying different stuff. Bed frame, mattress, pillow and a thick blanket put in place in a corner before quickly leaving.

"Not so bad down here see," you told your clone.

It nodded.

"Do you know why I'm so afraid of thunder?" You asked.

Your clone started to shake as if you've awakened a memory. "I don't know, all I know is that it hurt," it muttered.

"But you remember that something happened, just not what?"

The clone nodded again before turning towards you. "Do you think I can sleep in your bed tonight, don't dispel me, please. I don't want to be alone."

"That's fine," you replied. Looking at the sink you noticed someone had placed a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste on it. "Sneaky ninja," you mumbled under your breath.

And talking about sneaky ninja, a bowl of soup had appeared out of nowhere. "Thanks"

You took the bowl, sat down on the bed and began eating.

"Can I have some too?" The clone asked.

"You don't need to eat."

"That doesn't mean I don't want to eat," it said and got up from their desk to sit next to you on the bed.

"Okay, but not too much, I actually need to eat," you said and handed it the bowl.

It took a few spoons before handing it back to you. "It's good"

You nodded and continued eating till the bowl was empty and you go two sets of clean pyjama. "Here," you said and threw one set to your clone.

"Thanks," it said.

After getting changed and brushing your teeth, you could finally go to bed.

"Can I brush my teeth too?" It asked. "I know I don't need to, but I want to."

"Go ahead," you sighed and got into bed and shortly after the clone was done brushing in jumped in beside you.

"You were not so bad today bastard," it mumbled.

"Why does everyone call me a bastard?" You replied.

"Because you act like one."

"Good night, I won't dispel you until you want to."

"Good night, please stop considering me an ' _it'_ tomorrow, just because I'm a clone doesn't mean I'm at not a person," he mumbled before feeling asleep.

-x-

When you woke up the clone was still asleep, he had no school today so no point in waking him.

You got dressed and noticed there was a plate of food on your desk, rice omelette I looked like. You made sure to leave some for your clone before leaving.

You had of course forgotten something, your backpack was at home and you had to get it before going to school.

Your door was unlocked, didn't you lock it yesterday? You had probably just forgotten, Sasuke wouldn't try to seek revenge again, and there were no explosive tags here anymore so you were safe.

Ninja wire started to bind around you, making you unable move your arms.

"Uzumaki, where have you been?" An unknown voice said from… everywhere really.

"That's none of your business, who are you?" You asked.

"I followed you and then you disappeared, what's going on Uzumaki?"

"I said that's none of your business," you grunted.

"Then you appeared again later on just to go back home and get some bag."

"Oh... you're a stalker."

"I'm not a stalker," you heard from under your bed as your attacker crawled out.

A blond boy a bit taller than you, you couldn't say you'd ever seen them.

"Who are you?" You asked.

"Who am I? I'm your classmate bastard!" They yelled.

You weren't sure what to say, you really couldn't recall them, not that you ever paid too much attention to the rest of your class. Where you this much of a clutch?

"I'm Yamanaka Shin, just because I'm not an Uchiha doesn't mean I'm not worth anything. I work hard and just because I'm not that good at fighting doesn't mean others doesn't value my skills. Let see anyone else in the class capture you like this."

"I notice plenty of my classmates, I just forgot about you."

"Name them," Shin demanded.

"Uh... Sasuke, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba, Ino." Shin was right. You hadn't managed to even learn the names of any your classmates you didn't know from the anime.

"You remember Ino but not me!" He yelled at you.

"I'm sorry, let's be friends," you offered.

"No bastard. Not that there is any point anyway at this point and you better not blame me for you getting late to the academy today," Shin said before moving towards the door.

"Cut me loose please," you asked.

Shin turned back and cut the wire with a kunai.

"Thanks," you said, but you got no response back, now you just had to hurry back to the academy. Today was hopefully the last day at the academy, given that the exam next day would go well, so you didn't want to give a bad impression by being late. At least the ninja wire could get useful later.

-x-

The plan was to go back down to your clone after school, but Itachi changed the plans a bit.

"Sota, Shisui has come home," he said, his voice was more sombre than usual.

"Anything wrong Itachi?"

"Yes, he'll tell you himself."

You followed Itachi through the Uchiha compound, it was a route you were quite familiar with by now, and the other Uchiha no longer seem to mind your presence as much as when you first visited the place.

The first thing you noticed was that Shisui's shoes weren't there, and rather pretty obvious footprint in his small hallway.

Further inside you noticed Shisui on his couch with his head buried in the pillows shoes still on.

You were unsure of what to do in this situation. You're no idea how to properly comfort people, that was Shisui's speciality.

"It's okay Shisui, we're here," you tried.

"It's not okay, he's dead."

"Who's dead?"

"My father, things got fucked up. Nothing went right, one moment he was alive, the other he was dead. I managed to get in safety thanks to him but the mission failed."

"Oh, I'm sorry," you replied. "Do you want to sit up?"

"I...," Shisui muttered "I don't know. This was supposed to make everything better, it's all my fault, he died to save me because I wasn't good enough."

Itachi put a hand through Shisui's hair and started to comfort his older friend and cousin. "You're a good ninja, you're better than me and you know all the praise I get. Don't blame yourself."

Shisui started to laugh a bit and sat himself up. "That's because you're 12. When I was your age, I was far from your level. And I was far from yours and Sota's level when I was 7. Don't try to spare my feelings by stuff like that."

Now that Shisui's was sitting up, you could notice something has changed.

"Itachi, look at him, but not say anything," you said.

His eyes had turned into the familiar pattern of them, Mangekyou Sharingan. You were a bit unsure about what kind of information to provide Shisui at this moment

"What is it?" Shisui asked.

"Look yourself in the mirror, but avoid the windows," you said. It would be no good if any wandering Uchiha saw him.

"Why be so secretive about it, if you know, what does it hurt that anyone else knows?" Shisui argued.

"Just listen to me please," you said.

Shisui sighed and went to his bathroom for a moment before getting back again.

"My eyes…" Shisui mumbled.

"I can tell you more when we're alone, I've got a feeling someone is watching us…"

By now Sasuke had noticed you and Itachi and was currently climbing on top of his lap. The cute and furry one, of course, not his brother.

"Shouldn't you be comforting Shisui and not sit on my lap?" Itachi asked Sasuke.

"Don't worry, Itachi, I get in a better mood just watching you two. You're kind of a cat sometimes too," Shisui said and looked at him

"Meow," Itachi said.

"Do I ever need Sasuke when I've you?" He asked.

"Meow," Itachi said and began to crawl over into Shisui's lap. Quite a fun view really.

"Okay, enough now."

"Meeow," Itachi said and pawed at Shisui's face.

"I think you broke him," you said.

Itachi just ignored you two and continued to paw at him.

"Itachi, what's going on? It's not fun anymore, you're weirding me out."

But he just flashed his teeth at him and made a feral sound.

"It's your eyes," you whispered.

"I made Itachi think he's a cat, Itachi is too smart for genjutsu to work on."

"It's not what you think it is," you said, trying to be a bit cryptic.

"So if I try doing it again, he'll stop?"

"Yes," you suggested.

"You're not a cat Itachi," Shisui told him while looking in his eyes. But nothing happened, Itachi just rubbed his head into Shisui's chest.

"What do we do know?" Shisui asked.

"I've no idea."

"I thought you knew everything, I've no idea how you even know this much and don't tell me it's your head injury again, that makes no sense."

"I'm sorry, I think we'll just need to keep a watch on him. I think your powers need to recharge, and I'm not sure how long it will take. Or if we can find another way of getting it to wear off."

"I guess I'll just enjoy my second cat then, Itachi should have his old cat ear headband somewhere, can't you go and ask Mikoto if she knows where it is?" He asked.

"I'm not doing that to Itachi," you said.

"Come on Sota, wouldn't it be fun to see Itachi as a playful kitten, he just needs the ears and he's perfect?"

"You can go and I can watch Itachi. See if you see anyone lurking outside while you're at it," you suggested.

"Are you sure you can handle Itachi?" He asked.

"Can anyone handle him? I'll just find a piece of string to keep him occupied."

"Hmm... I'll go, I can't let this chance skip past me."

Shisui found a ball of yarn for you to occupy your new cat with and he left.

And Itachi didn't even wait for you to throw it, he just leapt forward and bit his teeth into the yarn and rolled around on the ground with it.

Not exactly what you had in mind, but Catachi had it fun. Sasuke, however, kept his distance from this mess and you'd no idea what he thought about the matter.

Should you try to ask Matatabi if she had any idea on how to solve the matter? How could you even ask her?

"Matatabi, do you know what I can do about this?" you asked out aloud. She was able to observe the world through your eyes, so she should be able to listen. The problem would be to listen to any eventual answer.

Could you stop it by just pushing chakra into him? How did they fix the Samurai leader at the 5-kage-summit? Didn't they just tell him what had happened and it was fine?

What that was you needed to do, just tell Itachi exactly what had happened and you'd fix him?

"Itachi, Shisui used the Sharingan to make you believe that you're a cat," you whispered in his ear.

In an instant, something seemed to wake up inside him and he got up and dropped the ball of yarn from his mouth.

"That was weird," Itachi said.

"Don't worry, we won't tell anyone."

"Having you two see me like that was embarrassing enough."

"True, but I guess you cheered him up a lot."

"What did you do," Shisui said from the entrance. He was back with a pair of white cat ears.

"I fixed him," you said.

"I can see that, but I wanted to have him be my cute cat for a bit longer."

"Shisui, I can still wear those if you want," Itachi took them and put on his head. "Meow."

"Thanks, I think this can solve things. We should tell the Hokage and we can solve this whole mess."

"No!" You called out.

"What, this will be perfect, if we tell him we can fix this..."

"No, you'll just get killed if you tell anyone, if you're going to do it, do it in secret."

"Don't they want peace, why would he do that?"

"I don't know, just don't tell anyone about this power, promise me. Not unless you have to, besides, it will probably not work again for at least some months, maybe a year, maybe a decade. I've no clue really, just that it takes time."

"Hmm, it is a shame to give up such a powerful weapon, but you're right, a power like this would be sought after. I just feel there is something we should do about it. We cannot sit and do nothing," Shisui said.

"We're not doing nothing, Father is pleased that Sasuke is being given a chance to graduate early. We just need to make father happy and if the others in our clan can see that, we might have a shot at it," Itachi explained.

"Is there someone outside the window?" You asked.

What had they heard, where you in deep shit or was it just an animal wandering about, or perhaps a crow? But a crow could very well be an Uchiha unless it was just Itachi that had that ability.

"I think we should leave Sota," Itachi said.

You nodded, you didn't know why, but it just seemed to be the safest choice. "We'll talk about this when you're somewhere safe Shisui."

"Talk about what?" It was the quite recognizable voice of Uchiha Fugaku.

"Nothing father," Itachi said.

"Don't lie to me. Sota here have good senses, I'm disappointed that you two didn't notice me," he said before turning to you and pointed to the door "Get out, I need to talk to them. And Itachi, take off that silly headband you're too old for that nonsense."

"I'm Shisui's guest," you argued.

"Just wait outside will you," Itachi promoted and took off the cat ears to put on you.

You nodded and stepped outside of the living room with Fugaku promptly closing the door. Though for some reason, every noise was suddenly much louder than it used to.

"What was going on here, why were you behaving in such a childish manner?"

"Sorry father, I and Shisui were just pulling a prank on Sota to make him believe that Shisui had made me think I was a cat. Just some harmless fun."

"And what's this about a powerful weapon?" Fugaku asked.

"Uchiha-sama, if I could make the Hokage think he was a cat, wouldn't get give me a lot of power?" Shisui said.

"That's not what it sounded like from Sota's reaction do this power."

"Father, Sota's head injury did turn him a bit weird, his rationale might not be the best and he's just seven years old, children make up explanations that don't always make sense."

"Very well son, we'll end it here for now. But I don't want to hear anything else suspicious around you two, the rumours are already wandering."

"Yes Father," Itachi replied.

Fugaku opened the door to the hallway where you were waiting and looked straight at you. In an instant, he removed the ears from your head and started tapping his foot on the floor before putting the ears on his head.

His face turned into a frown and he took them off again.

"Itachi, very clever these ears aren't they? I'm sure you didn't know it would let Sota eavesdrop on us when you put them on him."

"I'm sorry Father," Itachi said.

Fugaku put them in a grip ready to break them, before changing his mind pocketed them inside his uniform and left.

-x-

"Sota are you ready?" Itachi asked you.

"Are you sure this is right, training Sasuke and then come straight to me to teach me how to counter the tricks you taught him?"

"Are you saying I'm a bad brother for protecting Sasuke from the dangers of the world?"

"No."

"Then there should be no issue. We'll work on countering counters today, sounds good?"

You nodded.

"Alright, you start on the defensive, I'll come at you trying to strike, you're going to counter and I'm countering that again."

"Alright, come at me!" You said as you got into a defensive stance.

Itachi came at you, but his speed was slower than normal, you grabbed his hand while punching back. But instead of hitting straight, he dodged you again before hitting you in the stomach."

"It won't be this easy against Sasuke, but you get the idea on how it is in his shoes right?"

"Yeah, then it's my turn to go against you, ready?"

"I'm always ready, so go at it."

You moved quickly into Itachi's reach and tried hitting him while being aware of his planned defence. But you saw quickly that he was not grabbing your hand, so you had to take a step back to avoid getting hit with his superior reach.

"Not bad, and you seemed to not be taken by surprise that I didn't copy your tactic. A ninja is never predictable."

"Never?"

"If someone goes at you with the same trick 9 times in a row, there is no guarantee that the 10th won't be different and kill you."

"Ever happened to you?"

"Do I look dead to you?" He asked.

"No, but you get what I mean."

"Yes, I've been too arrogant when facing some of my opponents yes. So if you're going to be a better ninja than me you better not make the same mistake yourself."

"I got it, another round, make it a bit harder this round will you?"

"Be careful what you asked for," he said with an evil grin on his face. Even twelve-year-olds could look scary in such a small body as yours.

-x-

Today was the day, today you would know if you got to graduate or not. It all started with Fugaku getting up to take a pledge in front of the Hokage.

"Repeat after me. I Uchiha Fugaku promises to respect the results of the exam."

"I Uchiha Fugaku promises to respect the result of this exam."

"I accept that any failure is full you on my own, and not due to biased examiners," the Hokage continued.

"Why does he have to do this, won't your father get mad for getting accused of cheating?" You whispered to Itachi.

"This is something every parent have to do, it saves the Hokage from having to accuse anyone, Father just needs to accept it or there will be no exam for Sasuke. And it also saves the teachers from angry parents demanding that their kid should pass, even if they're not prepared."

"I see."

"Sota and Sasuke, I wish both of good luck, your teacher will take over from here," the Hokage said and left.

"Now, the written exam has already been completed, so we'll move onto the first practical test. Target shooting," Iruka said. "Now, Sota will you go first?"

"Sure," you replied and get handed a small pouch of kunai and shuriken and followed Iruka to a designated area behind the school.

"We start when I give the signal. There will be ten targets in total, you choose which order you want to use your weapons. But you'll end up using all of them in the end. You can try again if you miss, but be aware, the target will only appear for a short while and get faster and faster as we go.

So not like the normal target practise where the target was immobile.

"How will we be scored?" You asked.

"As long as you hit, you get a point, bullseyes aren't important here."

With the sound of a firecracker going off, you were on. The target could appear from all around you so you needed to be vigilant or else you'd lose point fast. With little hesitation, you managed to get the first shuriken off as you noticed the red disc appearing in the foliage. Kunai was easier to throw, so better save them for the last. It all went quite well, until the last targets. Things were going really fast and at your 7th target, you missed your first shot. No point in trying to hit it again as it would just disappear before you could react.

At eight and ninth you were lucky with your angle. Things felt good, like as if that miss was just a fluke. But before you could hit your 10th target, you heard another firecracker calling the entire thing off. What a great way to end it, not even being able to see the target before it disappeared. But 8 out of 10 wasn't that bad, you hoped.

It was now Sasuke's turn.

"The target will appear in different spots this time, so don't try to just copy Sota," Iruka told Sasuke.

He had a confident look on his face, not wanting to disappoint his father or Itachi, but unknown to you, for his own self-esteem, he needed to beat you.

Instead of going for the shuriken first tactic, he chose to start with kunai. And one after one he managed to take down the targets. He almost seemed pleased with himself. But then he ran out of kunai and the trouble started. His aim was off on his first shuriken and instead of hitting the target, it curved of course.

The previous smile on Sasuke's face was gone. One miss and he was suddenly a failure, at least in his own eyes and probably his father. Itachi however, was happy with Sasuke.

Even when the next one hit Sasuke's smile wasn't back. And it wouldn't come back as that was last of his hits. Six out of ten. He might have fared better if he started with the quicker more straight moving kunai, but that was in the past now.

"Good job Sasuke, 6 out of 10 isn't bad," Iruka smiled at Sasuke trying his best to be encouraging to the both of you. "Now do you need a short break or are you ready for the spar?"

"I'm ready," Sasuke replied.

"Alright, follow me both of you," Iruka said and lead you to a clearing with a big ring carved in the ground. "For the rules, taijutsu only. Don't hit your opponent when they're down, but you are allowed to pin them in place. You're out if both feet are out of the ring or if you're unable to stand up," Iruka explained.

"Nii-san has learnt me a lot of tricks to beat you Sota, this isn't like class where you can win all the time, get it?!" He yelled at you.

The fire was back in his eyes, you could say that at least. Little did he know that Itachi has gone to you each night and prepared you for everything Sasuke had learnt. You had made a promise to crush Sasuke, and you were going to keep it. None of you wanted to see Sasuke get promoted and killed in the field.

"Good luck," you greeted back. There was no need for trash talk. You were going to beat him, not his spirit.

"Now make the seal of confrontation."

You both followed suit as you'd done in every spar in class.

"Start!" Iruka yelled out.

Sasuke didn't move, he waited for you to make the first one, and you knew that he was letting you make the first move so he could surprise with you with a well-trained counter, but that wouldn't work.

You charged at him, but instead of hitting, you went into a blocking stance stopping Sasuke's fist. At the look of his eyes, he had expected you to hit instead. And that was the opening you needed to hit him back.

How were you going to approach this? Try to grapple him out or knock him down?

You were unsure if you were stronger so you went for the safest approach and tried hitting him again while being prepared to block any incoming hit. Sasuke had learnt from his previous mistake and was blocking instead of trying any risky moves again. But the bad thing about blocking was that you still got hurt. You just needed to keep going till Sasuke got tired of being on the defensive and hit back. It didn't take long, and when he tried swinging at you, you ducked down and charged at his midst with your head pushing him backwards.

You got him a bit closer to the edge before his footing loosened and he fell to the ground.

Usually, this was were spar ended in class, but now you had to force him to stay down. You didn't like what you were planning to do, but you had to. The rules only prevented you from hitting him, but stamping on his hand to inflict pain and keep him down should be within the rules right?

He let out a shriek of pain as his fingers got pressed into the ground. He quickly started to hit your foot with his other hand, but it was not very effective.

Iruka began to count down. "Three..."

Sasuke became more desperate and started yelling out while hitting you. "Get off me, I need to win.." But he was unable to put much force into his attacks.

"Two"

"I can't lose this, please get off me."

"One"

"You're a fucking asshole."

"Zero. Sorry Sasuke, but its over," Iruka announced. "Please get off him Sota."

You lifted your foot off him and handed out a hand to help him get up. But he just swatted it away with his other hand. He looked up at you with tears in his eyes. He was devastated, he was truly crushed. But he didn't say a word.

"Do you need help with your hand?" Iruka asked.

"No, I'm fine" Sasuke answered. But you couldn't avoid noticing him rubbing it. His pride hurt more than his hand.

"For the last part. I'm going to test your ninjutsu abilities. While Sasuke's hand gets some rest, you can start Sota. The first Jutsu is the henge, can you turn into me please?" Iruka explained.

You nodded and folded your hands into the correct seal. With a smoke cloud later, you were now a carbon copy of Iruka.

"Good work Sota, next one is the replacement Jutsu. Please switch with this chair," he said and pointed to said furniture, "and please dispell the henge will you?"

"Oh sorry," you said and dispelled it, before making another set of seals to replace with the chair. With a poof, you had changed places.

"Good work, now for the last one, the clone."

This was it, would he accept your shadow clone or even notice that it wasn't the normal clones?

You took a deep breath before splitting yourself into three. They all look fine and healthy, and you were quick to dispel them before they talked. They had a mind of their own and you wouldn't want Iruka to notice.

"Very well Sota, perfect this round," he said and smiled at you. "Now Sasuke, are you ready?"

"Yes," he said and walked up to where you'd stood.

"Can you turn into me please?"

Sasuke nodded and copied your earlier movements. What appeared wasn't completely right. It was rather how Iruka had looked like if he had Sasuke's eyes and hair colour.

"Good, but you still need a bit of work."

For the replacement, Sasuke had no issue.

"That's better, now for the clones. I want you to make two."

At the look on his face, it didn't look like he liked that, but he didn't say anything, just made the seal and produced a clone, not the two that were required. It looked fine, probably much better than what you'd done without the shadow clones, but not enough.

"Good job Sasuke. Both of you are done now. We'll go over your performance and decide if you're ready to become genin or not. It shouldn't take more than an hour. Go get some good to eat, you've both deserved it," Iruka said.

Sasuke walked back to his father and Itachi, you could see in Fugaku's eyes that he was not pleased. It was the eyes of a man that had just failed. He didn't believe Sasuke had done a good enough job and it was hopefully true. The only one looking happy there was Itachi.

While Itachi was spending time with his family, you took the trip to the dango stand. You still have some of the gift cards Naruto gave you for your birthday.

As you sat down at the stand you heard steps behind you. "How did it go?" Shisui asked.

"It went good, I mostly messed up on the two of my kunai shot, but other than that it looked good I hope."

"And Sasuke?"

"Safe I think."

"I'm glad to hear that, so should I buy you celebratory dango or wait till you've actually been promoted?"

"You can buy me, 'Good work today dango', and then later buy me 'Congratulations you're genin' dango."

"Would you have betrayed the village for dango?"

"How much dango are we talking about?"

Shisui started to laugh and you joined him.

"I'll make sure I and Itachi provide you with enough dango that you won't betray Konoha then", he said before ordering the usual stuff at the stand.

You've eaten this for months and you were still not tired of them. Maybe the Hokage should be worried about your dental health after all, because you were unsure how good these were for your teeth.

-x-

After a while, it was time to go back to the Academy to get your results. On the table, beside Iruka, you could see a single forehead protector lying there. So you knew that just one of you had made it.

"First of all, both of you did a good job, so if you fail, there is nothing to be ashamed over. Sota, come up here please," Iruka said and you stepped up to them.

"Your score in every part was well above the requirements, a bit of weakness in the target shooting, but that isn't hurting your performance too much."

He then moved his armed to grab the forehead protector and started fastening it around your forehead.

"Congratulations Uzumaki Sota, you're now officially a genin of Konoha. Meet up at the academy tomorrow for your first team meeting."

"Thanks, sensei," you answered.

"Now Sasuke, come up here."

He slowly approached Iruka and was pushed the first part by his father.

"Sorry Sasuke, I know you did your best, but it is not enough for this time. Your low score at the written part, along with the target shooting and ninjutsu, I cannot pass you this time around. But you might get the chance again next year, so stay positive and work on improving yourself," Iruka said.

"You never planned on passing him did you?" Fugaku was yelling at him. "Don't pretend we're blind, everyone can see that there was only one forehead protector."

"Uchiha-san, don't break your pledge, you promised before the exam to respect the results. Besides, we only brought out the forehead protectors after we evaluated the boys' performance. Sasuke had just as good of a chance of graduating, he just didn't perform well enough this time."

"You better tell the truth or I'm getting you removed from your position," Fugaku said before stepping up to Sasuke and grabbing his wrist. "We're going home now, Sasuke"

Before leaving, Itachi stepped up to you. "I'm sorry, I'd love to celebrate with you, but Sasuke needs me more now. I hope Father isn't too angry."

"I get it, I'll just get Shisui to buy me more dango for both of you."

"See you another time Sota and good luck with your team tomorrow."

"Thanks," you smiled to him while he was leaving.

Everything had gone according to the plan, now you just had to prepare for the next stage in life as a ninja. No more school to worry about, just missions and the dreaded D-ranks. As long as you got a sensei that let you use your shadow clones things would be fine.

Oops, you had all forgot about visiting your clone again...


	7. Chapter 7

You were carrying two sticks of dango, one for yourself and one as an apology for your clone. But as you stepped into your room in Danzo's underground base, the room was empty. In the corner, you notice black scorch marks and your clothes shredded around.

"I'm glad that's not me," you mumbled before biting on the ends of the dango sticks to free your hands. "Shadow Clone Jutsu" you called out.

You and your clone took the dango sticks out of your mouths.

"What happened?" You asked.

"Just an accident," he shrugged. "Do you think I can eat the dango copies?"

"Hmm, it would be a nice to get unlimited dango, so try." Why hadn't you thought about this before? Then you wouldn't have to mooch on Itachi or Shisui anymore.

The moment the clone bit his teeth into the ball, he and the dango disappeared in a puff of smoke.

That made sense. You put the dango on a piece of sealing paper you hoped was clean enough before recreating the clone.

"That was weird, it felt like I was eating myself," he said.

"Here," you handed him one or your real ones. "I'm sorry for forgetting about you, stuff happened,"

"It's okay, I got a lot of progress with the sealing stuff," he said between taking bites of his dango. "I managed to make a seal absorb several explosions, but it is quite unstable which was what happened there?" He said pointing to the wall. "I'm sorry about your clothes."

"It's okay, they'll provide me with more if I need it I think. So can you show me how you did it?"

The clone nodded and sat down on the desk and started drawing the normal explosion absorption seal, but the difference was clear. From the storage on the old seal, he had drawn another element that looked like was pulling whatever stored there into a much bigger container. "It works a few time before it starts glowing and releases its contents."

"Do you want me to help you, or do you want to work on this while I'm not here?" You asked him.

"You're better at this than me, so I'd like your help, but it would be fun to have some project to work on yes."

You nodded. "Maybe if we make something around the circle to stabilize it, or maybe another shape could work? Right now we're minimizing the surface of the circle compared to area, putting much more pressure on it."

"Oh, so what does that mean?" he asked.

This was simply physics or rather maths, but the clone wasn't you and hadn't had this kind of stuff in the academy, so you couldn't really blame him.

"Not sure how to explain this," you mumbled before picking up a kunai and gently poking yourself on the finger "Imagine a kunai, it's quite sharp and if you put a lot of pressure on a small area it hurts you."

"But if you spread it, it doesn't hurt, I think I get it now," he said. "So if I use a spiral it should work?"

"Probably, should we test?" You asked.

The clone nodded and grabbed a clean sheet of paper and drew the improved seal before putting it in the corner of the room. "You should stay on the other end in case something goes wrong," he suggested.

You nodded in response while the clone started firing one after another explosive tag while the seal absorbed everything. "It seems like is working, I didn't manage this many tags before it exploded the last time."

"Nice, we're a good team."

"What happens if it fills up," he mumbled.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"We don't know before we try," the clone said while firing off some more tags, waiting a few seconds before each.

"I think it is stable now, it's not glowing ominously," he said and kept on firing off a few more before the seal gave in and caused a large explosion, kicking dust and pieces of dirt everywhere, though you were quick to cover your face with your hands. Your ears were ringing and you weren't sure if the room was shaking or just your balance was off due to the sound.

Your clone was unsurprisingly gone.

Though the clone's reckless behaviour wasn't without results. The fix to the shape helped a lot and you could store a lot more than expected. But it still had instability problems. You wouldn't want the entire seal to fail if there was no room left to store the explosion. But rather just fail to absorb the last explosion, or better, warn you long before it got full so you could do something about it.

Without warning a group of Root agents burst inside your door. "What's going on here?" One of them asked.

"I just had an accident," you replied. It was just now you saw the full extent of your failed attempt. A large dent in the ground and on the walls with cracks travelling along the ground, up the wall and on the ceiling. Your bed was also broken, but at least your desk and other tags were far enough from the blast to get away from it with nothing worse than a bit of dirt and sot on it.

"I think you should leave for today. Come back in a few days and your room will be put back in order again. Danzo will be informed of this," they said and dragged you outside. A prick on the back of your neck could be felt, a sign that your access to your room had currently been revoked.

How bad was it for this kind of reaction? You didn't think much of it before walking home again. It was getting late anyway. Hopefully, your sensei wouldn't be as tardy as Kakashi, hopefully, your sensei wasn't Kakashi, or else you'd defect.

-x-

"What do to bring today," you mumbled to yourself. As a genin, you should be properly equipped. That meant putting on the sword because it could be useful. Fasten the kunai pouch and even some with explosive tags tied to it. You weren't supposed to have them here, but with all the intruders you'd had in the room, it would hurt to have some real firepower if someone actually dangerous tried breaking in. It would at least scare them because you were little keen on blowing up your own apartment since this one was made out of wood, much less durable than Danzo's dirt and rock walls.

After looking yourself in the mirror, double-checking that you looked decent, you left and made sure to lock the door. Not that it mattered since everyone seemed to have a knack for lockpicking around here.

You were finally there, outside the room was your new team was waiting. First impressions were never that important for you, but this was different. It wouldn't be good to get off with a bad start with a team you'd probably spend years together with. You took a deep breath before pushing down the door handle and opened the door.

And the look surprised you. That you didn't recognize the sensei was to be expected, but to see Kabuto and Torune sitting there along with him, that you hadn't expected.

But bugboy was supposed to be in Root, while Shi... what was his name? Was he even in your class… He was wearing sunglasses, right? But there was no one in your class with sunglasses. You tried visualizing your class, but your mind was blank. Had they switched places by the virtue of butterflies?

You couldn't be entirely sure if Torune wasn't spying on you for Danzo, but Danzo didn't need him for that either, he had enough people watching you other places.

"Come and join us Sota, we don't bite," your new sensei said.

"Oh sorry," you replied and sat on the desk opposite of them.

"I'm Namiashi Raidou, but you can call me Raidou-sensei. Will you introduce yourself, boys?"

"I'm Kabuto, I like studying medicine and I'm already a decent medic. I hope to pass the chuunin exam next time. I'm 14 already and feel I'm being slow, but I lose confidence when it matters."

No, you give up because you don't want to pass you evil bastard.

"Why do you look at me like that?" He asked.

"Sorry," you said to excuse yourself.

"I'm Aburame Torune, I like my bugs. I'm happy with being with my team, I just hope Hana could have stayed with us more."

Either he was a good actor, or he was nothing like the emotionless Danzo drone you knew him as.

"Inuzuka Hana became Chuunin in the last exam, I'm sure Kabuto could have a good chance too, but he quit before the last round," Raidou explained.

"I'll do better next time, I assume we won't join anyone this year?"

"Because of Sota? I'm not holding his age against him. There has been plenty of genin who've managed well with less than a year of experience."

"Thanks for the confidence sensei, but don't you think it's a bit rushed? I know Itachi didn't become a chuunin before he was 10."

"You're not Itachi, are you? His Sharingan can't match your potential."

Was he hinting towards the cat? Shouldn't your team know about her too then?

"If you're ready for the next exam here in Konoha, there is no need to wait a few years just because your friend waited. And getting promoted doesn't mean you have to leave the team, don't make yourself worst for that reason. Hana left because she wanted to."

"I see."

"Do you want to tell us about yourself?" Raidou asked.

"I'm Uzumaki Sota. I like hanging around my friends Uchiha Itachi and Shisui and for hobbies, fuuinjutsu and explosions I guess. Do you have any hobbies sensei?" You asked.

"I don't have time for hobbies."

"He likes knitting," Genma said from the window.

"What are you doing here?" Raidou asked.

"I just wanted to see if you're treating my senpai right," he winked at you.

"I've done this for a while now, I don't need your help."

"Raidou can be a bit stuck up most of the time, but he was much worse before he took on a team. So don't be afraid to joke a bit around sometimes, it's good for him."

"Get out, I'm trying to make a good first impression here," Raidou yelled and Genma leapt out of the window he came from.

"Sorry about that. Welcome to Team 4, Sota."

"Four…"

"You're not superstitious, are you? No one is allowed to die on my watch, the only one to die are our enemies."

"If you die I'll find a way to bring you back so sensei can scold you," Kabuto said smiling, hiding his bastard necromancer nature behind a joke

"Hey, why are you so angry at me, it was just a joke?" Kabuto asked.

"I'm sorry, nothing."

"It doesn't seem like nothing. We're a team now, you can tell me if I've done something wrong."

You brought forth your best fake smile. "I just look angry when I'm not sometimes, you're good Kabuto."

"That sword Sota, you know to use it?" Raidou asked.

"A bit, had one duel that went badly, got stabbed in my stomach, so I've not used it since then."

"Do you want to learn?"

"No thanks, I'm just carrying it in case it will be useful for something. It's quite light so it doesn't matter."

"He was been trying to make us pick up a sword too, but so far he hasn't had any success. One of Hana's dogs wanted to learn though, but Sensei for some reason doesn't think swords and dogs were a good combination," Kabuto told you.

"The offer stands for all of you if you were to change your mind."

"I want to help people, not kill people sensei."

"You can't defeat threats by healing them Kabuto."

"I've my ninja way, you've your Sensei."

Raidou just sighed and shook his head.

It was time to crack one mystery. "Torune can I ask you something?"

He nodded.

"Do you have any other family than your father?"

He quickly turned his gaze towards the floor. "Not anymore," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry, they died?" Maybe a bit insensitive, no most definitely insensitive, but curiosity made the cat do stupid things.

"No, they're just gone."

That explanation perfectly fitted his cousin being in Root. So you didn't need to worry about Tororune working for Danzo, they had just switched spots. Kabuto, however... Didn't Danzo send him to spy in other villages? Or had Orochimaru gotten to him at this point?

Danzo's style was more the emotional drone, this wasn't that. He was an Orochimaru spy and you just needed to prove it.

"I guess this is all for today. You've got the rest of the day off, you'll meet at 6 am tomorrow at training ground 4." Raidou said and sent you off.

-x-

"Hi Sota, how was your team?" Itachi asked you as you were leaving the academy building.

"Fine, I guess," you replied.

"Mind if we take a walk while you tell me about them?"

"It's okay. I'm not sure how I feel, this boy Kabuto seems nice, too cheerful really, but I can't avoid thinking something is up with him."

"I guess you just need to keep a watch then, but be careful that you're not so sure of yourself that you see things that aren't there."

"I'm not so sure. And the other boy Torune seems fine too, I thought he was in Root, but he is apparently living with his father, so that doesn't make much sense."

"So why do you think he should be in Root Sota?"

"I just feel it, just like with the other stuff, but what if I'm wrong, what if I've gotten everything mixed up. No, his cousin is in Root instead. Danzo has been demanding kids for Root and Shibi was forced to give up his son."

"That makes sense, there is no big secret that Danzo has been recruiting clan kids. He even tried getting me for a while."

"He's not getting me," you said and looked up at him.

"Sasuke," Itachi exclaimed. "What happened?"

Turning your head back on the road you saw a halting and downtrodden Sasuke, his right side of his face was red and blue and you could see markings on his neck and arms, his hand was also bandaged from you stepping on it during the spar.

Saying that he looked horrible would be putting a nice spin on it.

"Father beat me because of you," Sasuke said, his voice was strained.

"Because of me?" Itachi replied, looking confused "I haven't done anything, have I?"

"I know you sabotaged me, you made me fail on purpose!" He yelled.

"I…" he tried getting words out but failed.

Itachi walked up to Sasuke and was reaching his hand out, but Sasuke hit it back with as much force that he could muster.

"Don't touch me!"

"I did it to protect you Sasuke, the world there is dangerous," Itachi pleaded.

"But not for Sota, you help him graduate," Sasuke argued back.

"He's better prepared."

"I would be prepared too if you spent time helping me instead of him all the time," he pointed at you.

"You're my brother I just want you to be safe."

"I'm not your brother anymore, you've replaced me with Sota and Shisui."

"Sasuke that's not true."

"You spend much more time with them than me."

"I've spent a lot of time with Sota helping him graduate. I'll spend more time with you from now on if you want?"

"I hate you!" Sasuke said, his eyes were getting teary.

"Sasuke, don't say that you don't mean it."

"I mean it. You tricked me, you made Father think I'm a failure. You're barely spending time with me. How can I trust you Itachi?"

"I don't know," Itachi mumbled. "I'll be better from now on, I promise, I promise."

"Don't come home I don't want to see you again," Sasuke said.

"Are you sure you want to go home now, with Father treating you like that?"

"He did it because of you, and he has apologized to me. He's going to teach me the fireball Jutsu soon."

"I was going to do that Sasuke," Itachi said.

"I don't want your help, you'll just make me do it wrong. I can make Father proud finally."

"I..."

"I'm going, leave me alone," Sasuke said and turned to you and looked straight in your eyes "I wish you had died."

After Sasuke had left, you turned to Itachi again. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, I think I want to stay somewhere else, give Sasuke some space I'm sure it will go over soon."

"You can stay with me if you want?"

"Thanks, but I think that would just make Sasuke angrier. Don't worry about me, I'll figure out something," Itachi said and gave you a strained smile. You could see subtle tears falling down Itachi's chins, he had tried hiding them but had failed in the last minute.

-x-

The rest of the way home was uneventful and you were happy to see that your door was locked today. No sneaky ninja hiding under your bed.

"Danzo!" You called out as you saw the man sitting on one of your kitchen chairs sipping tea. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a small task for you it is time you pay the village back for the help you've gotten."

"What kind of task?"

"I want you to make some copies of this seal for me," he said and unrolled a large seal on the table.

"An explosive tag?" You questioned.

"Yes."

"How many do you want?"

"A hundred would be sufficient."

"What are you going to do with all that, blow up a bridge?"

But as usual, Danzo had still not learnt that it was polite to laugh at people's jokes, even if they were bad. He just turned it over and revealed another seal on the backside. A backwards glue symbol was quite prominent in the middle.

"You see what this is?" He asked you.

"Yes, it's for sticking the seal onto a surface. And it's backwards because when it's applied on a surface, it's mirrored, so the seal itself needs to be a mirror, right?" You asked.

"You'll find a box of blank tags in your room along with some extra jars of ink. There is enough for some of your personal projects too. You have got a month."

"I was told to not come back for a few days," you said.

"That was a mistake on their part and has been corrected. Do a good job and there will be rewards, delay and there will be consequences," he said and put down the empty cup of tea before leaving your small apartment."

"What is the point of locks if everyone just breaks in anyways," you muttered when he was out of hearing distance.

Better get started, larger seals took more chakra out of you, even if drawing them was relatively quick by now. And you didn't know how much time and chakra you'd spend on missions and training, especially since Raidou-sensei didn't seem like the kind of guy who was going to waste much of his time on D-ranks.

On the way back to his base, a tabby cat started following you and after a while, it started rubbing against your feet. And you had to stop for a moment to not stumble in it.

"Meow," it said and started pawing up on your side.

"Hmm, I could perhaps bring you down, Danzo hasn't told me that it isn't allowed," you mumbled to yourself and bow down so the can could climb up on you.

"What's your name?" You asked the cat while scratching their ear.

"Meow," it responded.

"I'll call you Meow then, hang on now," you said before entering the base. You hoped the cat would follow through and not just get thrown off by the magics of the entrance.

There was no Root agent there to put up any objection about both the cat, or you coming back at this time so you just carried it into your room and it jumped down from your shoulder before lying down on one of your shelves.

You opted for not bringing out your clone again, he probably needed some rest after being violently blown apart and being alone was alone nice sometimes.

You picked up one of the boxes of paper tags and placed it on your desk. They were much bigger than what you were used to, comparable with A3 paper you'd reckoned. One thing was for sure was as you took a look at the ink jars he had brought in, there was plenty for this task.

Looking them gave you an idea, instead of storing explosions, fire or whatever you'd wished to defend yourself again on paper scribbles, you could perhaps use small jars of ink. The pressure might be a problem here to, but you could fill it gravel or sand to deal with that, and a metal or glass container would probably supply much more resistance than what an uncontained ink splat on paper would do.

But you needed a safer way to test things before that, and your clone needed rest or rather you didn't trust him to be here a week without supervision.

The first couple of seals went well, but after a while, the chakra drain was becoming apparent. Though you'd get better with age. You knew that your old classmates had barely any chakra now compared to when they became a genin. The question about when Sasuke would be able to fire off fireballs wasn't about skill, but have enough chakra to keep standing after one try.

You heard meowing and scratching at the door.

"I'm sorry I didn't have more time for you, I let you out," you told Meow. It was clearly a smart cat as they quickly jumped upon you as you talked to them.

"Maybe you should hide under my jacket so no one sees you," you told the cat and grabbed your jacket from your chair.

The cat was ducking their head down as you left your room and walked the short bit through the tunnels towards the entrance. When you were outside you pulled down the zipper so the cat could get out if he wanted.

"I guess I should go home now too," you mumbled to yourself. "Do you want to follow me home?" You asked Meow, but it just ran away.

On the way back you heard shouting inside a bar.

"Why did you serve him sake, he's just a child!" Kakashi yelled.

"He was having a bad time, so we decided to cheer him up a bit, he was having a good time after he got some glasses inside him."

"I'll report this, and don't you dare try to bribe yourself out of this mess," Kakashi continued and left the building.

It was then you saw he was carrying Itachi on his back. His face was red and he could barely open his eyes.

"Mom," he said before he started vomiting on Kakashi's uniform. "I want mom."

It didn't look like he was aware of his environment at all.

"Are you taking him home?" You asked.

"I'm not bringing him to his father in this state, I'm taking him back to my place."

You began following after.

"Go home, Itachi needs some space and not you hanging around him," Kakashi said and picked up the speed.

There was no point arguing with Kakashi, he'd use force against you for less in the past. The plan was to go home, but perhaps you should tell Shisui first.

When you arrived at the gates of the Uchiha compound, the guards blocked the entrance for you.

"You're not allowed inside here, Fugaku's orders," one of them said.

"I need to talk to Shisui."

"That's not our problem," they replied.

"Be nice to him," Shisui said from the top of the wall and jumped down beside you.

"I need to talk to you about Itachi," you said.

"Alright, let's go somewhere more private," he said.

As you were talking Shisui whispered into your ear. "We're being watched, but going somewhere else means that only one person will listen in."

You nodded.

He finally stopped by a bench near an empty training ground and you sat down.

"Let me start," Shusui said. "Fugaku talked to me and Itachi earlier. He figured out that Itachi had sabotaged Sasuke's chances at the exam."

"Yeah, Itachi helped me counter Sasuke's tricks for the spar," you said.

"Itachi did much more than that. You might have found it strange that Sasuke started with the easier weapon during the target shooting, but this was because Itachi had told him that it was better to make sure to hit the first targets than to get greedy with the points.

"He made Sasuke shift focus from the other tests, and focus primarily on the spar as he overemphasised the importance of that task. So even if he were to defeat you there, his score elsewhere would be too low for him to graduate.

"It was a well-planned plan to make sure Sasuke would fail, and I think Fugaku has told Sasuke everything."

You nodded. "Yes, I and Itachi meet Sasuke. He was beaten up and was blaming everything on Itachi. Told Itachi that he hated him and that accused Itachi of replacing him as a brother."

"That bastard," Shisui grunted. "Itachi and Sasuke would be better off without him."

"Itachi couldn't handle it…" you said before pausing.

"Don't be afraid to tell anything about Itachi, he's being watched too. So that bastard won't learn anything new."

"He went to drink sake. I found out when I passed the bar and heard Kakashi shouting at someone inside there about them letting a _child_ drink, before carrying him out. Itachi looked quite sick and Kakashi brought him home with him.

"I'm going to get him," Shisui said. "I don't trust Kakashi with him."

"Stop," you said and grabbed his jacket. "You're not making things better for Itachi, he needs rest, not you arguing with Kakashi"

"I guess you're right. He was Itachi's _senpai_ for a while and helped him with much of what he knows today."

"Do you feel challenged?"

Shisui paused for a moment before outing a strong "No," before continuing. "There is more to the story. As you heard the other day, Fugaku things I and Itachi are up to something. That's why we're being watched. I and Itachi also being forbidden from going on missions together without anyone he trusts being with us. Have we fucked everything up?"

As long as you didn't say anything explicit you'd be okay right? Keep it vague and you'd be okay?

"I don't think so, we still have time. Nothing will happen before Sasuke is eight-years-old I think, but after that things are more uncertain."

"That gives us half a year then, that's good to hear. But about you, how was your first day with your team?"

"Fine, even if I don't trust one of my teammates, I hope it's not grounded in reality, but you can never be too careful and I hate it. He seems nice, but I feel it's just a cover so he can stab us in the back before we can react," you explained.

"Are you sure you're not being a bit paranoid, you're far too young to succumb to paranoia, maybe it's the air you're breathing. Make sure to get plenty of fresh air. But if you get anything substantial on him, tell me and I can try to get something done. Fugaku won't let pettiness get between him and doing his job."

"I'll see if I figure something out."

"I'm also trying to get you for a mission together, but that won't happen before your first C-rank, so that can take a while."

"Not really, I don't think that Raidou-sensei will spend much time with D-ranks, so I'm sure it will be pretty soon."

"I think it might be a bit too early with C-ranks, you're not invincible, but Raidou-san is close to the Hokage, so you should be safe with him. But where is the bow I gave you?"

"It gets a bit crowded with the sword and everything else, and I've not started practising yet, I was waiting for you to show me stuff."

"I'll show you tomorrow, and don't worry, with a bit of an adjustment you can fit everything. You should be strong enough that your equipment won't weigh you down any, if not, the weight will just help you out. And more importantly, it will just make you more intimidating."

"Intimidating? I'm as intimidating as your cat."

"Hey, my cute little Sasuke is a fearsome beast," Shisui laughed. "Don't underestimate the signals you're sending. The contradiction between your cute appearance and being armed to the teeth makes the enemy unsure what to do, and in the moment of confusion, you strike."

"Thanks, I think I should go to bed now, I don't want to be tired for the team meeting tomorrow."

"Good night Sota, I'll show you my plan with the bow tomorrow. I'll find you myself you so don't have to worry about not being let into the compound"

"Good night," you said and took to the road home again hopefully for real this time.

-x-

The good thing about Raidou-sensei was that he was punctual. The moment the clock stroke 6 am, he was on his spot.

"I've got a mission for us, a simple C-rank doing some deliveries on the route to Suna. We will travel at sunset so we can go through the worst part of the desert at night. I hope you can keep up Sota, we're following a slower pace than I would normally, so it shouldn't be hard as long as you put in the effort. Now go and pack and bring your bag here so I can inspect it, I'll be back here in 3 hours so if there is something else you need to get done, you should have plenty of time," Sensei explained

"Sensei, I can use storage seals right?" You asked him.

"Yes, just make sure to organize them properly. I expect you to know where to find what," he said.

"What should I bring?"

"Prepare for the worst," he replied.

"But that doesn't tell me what to bring," you argued.

"Sota, you're not in the academy anymore. This isn't a test, if you miss something you'll be told so and you'll go get it afterwards. I'm here so you can learn from me, yes, but most importantly I'm here so you can fail safely and learn from your own experience. Go and pack now."

"Yes, Sensei," you said and ran back to your apartment.

What to bring, what to bring. Weapons of course, but what about the other necessities.

Water was a given. Then there was food, what food were you supposed to be bringing? If it was up to you, you'd bring dango, but could you store food safely inside them or would something weird happen to it.

But dango was not proper food. Would you be cooking? Was he expecting you to eat disgusting ration bars? Why couldn't Raidou give proper instructions, you wanted to butt your head into the wall.

How far was it to Suna? 2-3 days? If you stayed there a week. Cleanliness wasn't always possible on missions, but important both because your smell could be picked up by enemies or wild animals. And no one wanted to lose a fight because their dirty clothes itched at a bad moment. The norm was probably washing stuff on missions to avoid carrying too much. You'd been doing that as exercises in the academy. But you had no such carry limits. You could just put one set of clean clothes in separate sets and seal your dirty laundry.

Maybe you should ask him about the food when you meet again.

You also needed to gather some stuff at Danzo's underground lair.

On the way there you stopped by a store selling water bottles. The shelves were full of bottles and it was had to navigate through all the glass. But in the end, you found what you were looking for, a shelf of some larger bottles, it wouldn't be good to run out of water in the middle of the desert. If you bought something too small, Raidou would probably just make you buy a new one and that would be a waste of money.

"Do you need help kid?" the shopkeeper asked you.

"I'm looking for a water bottle for my first mission outside the village," you said.

The man took a look at your forehead protector. "You borrowed that from your brother?"

You frowned at him in annoyance and his eyes shifted towards the sword handle sticking up from your back. The more he looked at you the more his expression changed as he realized that you were a properly outfitted ninja.

"You're making me uncomfortable," you said.

"Oh sorry, I was just joking with you, I pull that one on every young ninja, never works really. Don't worry I'll help you and even give you a discount. Now, where are you going if you're allowed to tell?"

"I'm going to Suna, so I expect I need a lot of water."

"Yes and no. You've plenty of times to refill your bottles before entering the land of wind, and since I'll assume you'll be going at night. But the water there is crazy-expensive especially for foreigners, you should bring your own. It is just not a disaster if you run out. Just don't let yourself be tricked by the seasons. Suna a hot hellhole all year round, just because its cold here doesn't mean it's colder there."

You nodded.

"As long as you can carry it comfortably you can never get enough, but I suggest about four litres of water for you. But none of that nonsense, you were considering earlier. Carrying one big bottle is just asking for trouble. Its harder to carry around and if something goes wrong you lose all your water," he said and went back to his counter getting a bag to put your stuff in before leading you around the store.

"Seven of these should be decent," he said and put some matt glass jars into the bag. "These shouldn't shiny too much in the sun. Now you just need a couple of drinking bottles."

He leads you to two strange-looking bottles with a screw-top on both the bottom and the top.

"They're made to be easy to fill and easy to drink from. You screw off the bottom when you want to fill them, just make sure to close the top first and make sure you close the bottom properly after filling it, you know it when you got it."

"Thanks," you replied.

"If it's too heavy to carry, just fill it up less. And don't worry too much about breaking them. They should even handle being thrown at spiky rocks, but that doesn't mean you should test your luck."

You nodded and followed him to the counter so you could pay.

After getting some more things you needed, you finally arrived at your underground room, as you had plenty of time, there was something you wanted to try.

You took a long strip of paper and dug a small hole on one end and started drawing a storage seal around it. If everything went to plan, you should be able to seal kunai inside it and have it be hooked in the hole when releasing it again.

A quick attempt later and the plan worked, the kunai was hanging nicely at the end. The only thing that missed now was putting an explosion seal on the other end. This way you could store your explosive kunai much easier. You made a handful before stocking your bag with different other explosive tags, along with the other stuff you had packed and made sure to write descriptive labels on the back of all the storage seals and grabbed another handful from your drawer for the jars you had bought.

How well does the water from the sink taste down here? There was only one way to find out and that was to take a sip.

Not so bad, you reasoned and started filling up your bottles. Though would the water go bad till you reached Suna? You'd just look and see what the rest of the team did about it.

-x-

Soon after you'd left Danzo's base Shisui approached you. "Hi Sota, are you ready with your bow today?"

"Yes," you turned around in a little swirl to show it on your back.

"Good, follow me," he said.

As you were walking, there was one thing you had to ask. "Have you talked to Itachi today?"

"He was still sleeping when I went over. Kakashi is considering taking him out on a mission. Not anything hard, just something he can use as an excuse for a vacation."

It didn't take long before you arrived at the training ground. Based on the length of the area and the targets on the end, it looked like it was for long-distance accuracy.

"I want you to throw your kunai as far as you can,"

You nodded and got into a proper stance, you knew you need to throw it on an angle, doing it at full power was a bit tricky but you tried your best.

"That was pathetic," you mumbled as you saw it not even going half the distance of the field.

"Sota, you're missing the point, now we're going to do the same with your bow."

You unhooked it from your back and grabbed an arrow from your bag and began trying to shoot.

Clumsy was a good way to describe your attempt.

"Let me help you."

He guided your hands to the correct spot on the bow and guided the other was you thread the end of the arrow onto the bowstring. Now push forward your left arm while pulling back your right, but don't let loose yet.

You nodded and pulled the bow.

"Now aim halfway up for the maximum distance," he said and guided your arm up in a 45-degree angle.

"Lastly, pull back as far as you can before releasing it."

You let go of the string and the arrow shoot forwards into the air much farther than your kunai throw.

This was fun.

"Do you see what you can do with this?" Shisui asked.

You shook your head. "It won't be easy to aim at my enemy this way."

"You don't need to be very accurate, instead of putting explosive tags on kunai, put it on your arrows. The enemy won't see it coming."

"That's cruel and …"

"Badass. Sometimes ambushes are the way to go. Better them than us right. Though I hope it will be some time till you'll be using this, the missions your sensei likes to take often requires giving his enemies an early retirement. He is a responsible person, so you don't need to worry about getting seriously injured or killed. There are other people in your life you should a lot more worried about,"

"A voice in my head tells me that I should run and get far away from him and the village. But I need to get stronger, I cannot run. Everything is fine for the moment, he doesn't seem intent at hurting me again as long as I play nice I think. I got a task from him yesterday, nothing bad at all, a bit tedious maybe but good practise"

"Sota, he's conditioning you. He starts with innocent tasks you might even enjoy, and before you know it, you've your sword deep inside a noble somewhere in enemy territory. You should tell the Hokage, tell him to help you get out."

"I'm fine. I made a friend down there, they'll watch over me. They've already covered for me when it comes to my fear of thunder and provided me with food when they weren't supposed to. They're taking a risk on my behalf and the least I can do is putting some trust in them."

"I'll concede for now, but please seek help before it is too late, deal?"

"Deal"

-x-

There wasn't much time left, but you arrived on time. Kabuto and Torune were whispering something to each other.

"Hi," you waved to them.

They quickly moved away from each other. It looked like they had been talking about you while waiting. Probably not good things, not that you blamed them.

You needed to be more friendly with Torune, there was no reason not to. He seemed like a good kid. The next years would be miserable without any friends on the team.

"Torune, have you been to Suna before?" You asked him.

"Yes, I have."

"So how is it there?"

"Dry and hot, my bugs hate it there, I wish we didn't have to go," he said.

His black outfit could impossible help much under the sun. It was a wonder how Kakuro manage to live his entire life there with his black outfit.

"Sometimes you have to do things you don't want do to Torune, you just need to figure out how to deal with it, it's a learning experience like everything else. And Sota, black clothing isn't as bad as you think it is, it is quite good at expelling the heat."

"Huh?" you exclaimed.

"Sota, I can read your face and how you're looking at his clothes. But that black mask for yours is not good Torune, its too thin and close to your head. I say this every time we're going to Suna and every time you complain not being able to stand the heat."

"But I like it sensei and it hides my eyes nicely. It is you guys that are weird and show of your eyes for everyone to see."

"Alongside Sota's eyes, no one would pay much attention to mine and Sensei's eyes," Kabuto said and turn to you with a smile "Not that there's anything wrong with them of course. They suit you."

What's up with him trying to be nice to you after you clear dismissal attitude.

"Thanks." You just had to give in. Maybe Kabuto would be less pushy if you just stopped pushing back on his friendliness and more importantly if you wanted to befriend Torune, being visible an ass towards Kabuto might not be the best idea.

"Now let me check your bags to see if you've packed properly. Sota you're first."

You showed him the bag with the seals.

"Open them up," Raidou told you.

"Is that really necessary, it says on the seals what's in them."

"How do I know you've put what you say it is inside them? Or that you've not done anything else wrong?"

"I guess you've got a point," you said and started revealing the content of your seals. "I wasn't sure about the food, so I've not gotten anything yet."

"Don't worry about that, I'll provide that for our missions unless I say otherwise. But you haven't brought any snacks I've seen, why is that?"

"I didn't know if it was proper. But why didn't you tell me to not bring food so I didn't have to think about it?"

"You need to trust your team and don't worry if you make a mistake. I told you this earlier. And for your other question, morale is quite important on missions. If you've got a bad time, maybe not have had enough sleep, the weather might be crap, you're not going to fight as effectively. Keeping some snack on you to improve your mood will make you fight better and make sure your team doesn't die. I might have gotten a reputation for being too serious and too much of a buzzkill, but I'm not stupid.

"Now we're going to set up camp. Kabuto, take the lead," he ordered.

"Why set up a camp here in the middle of the village, we've not gone anywhere?"

"Have you done this before?"

You shook your head.

"Exactly, now go and help your team set up the tents."

The tents were easy to set up and Kabuto was pretty decent at giving you and Torune instructions.

"Good work everyone. Torune and Kabuto, I checked your bags, everything is in order. Now we'll stay here till sunset. Try to get some sleep, we'll be running all night. Sota, you'll be sharing tents with me."

This felt silly, but you just had to listen to your sensei. It wasn't easy to get to sleep as you weren't that tired, but you just had to try.


	8. Chapter 8

Trying to sleep was hopeless. There was too much energy inside you, and the bright light of the day didn't make it any better. The noise outside the tent made it even harder to sleep. Raidou-sensei managed it somehow, at least he wasn't snoring. How did ninja with snoring issues deal with it, because it didn't seem like a good trait to have if you were trying to keep hidden or if your teammates were trying to sleep?

You stepped outside the tent to see Kabuto and Torune sparring.

"Shouldn't we be sleeping now?" You asked them.

They stepped away from each other and Kabuto began to answer you. "Exercise makes it easier to sleep."

"Yeah, that makes sense," you replied.

"I want to challenge you," Kabuto said.

"Why?"

"You struggle sleeping too, don't you? So why don't you get the energy out of the system?"

"I don't get tired easily, at least not from physical activity."

"But I'm tired of you. You've been nasty towards me since we met. I don't know why. You're nice to Torune and Raidou, what have I done to you? I want to fight you!"

You looked at him. He didn't seem that mad, but that could just be him being able to keep his facial expression in check.

So what should you do, did you really have any choice? As so often with everything else, you found it easier to just give in than fight it.

"Okay, what are the rules?"

"Only taijutsu, no other tricks or Jutsu," he explained.

You nodded.

Torune started counting down. "Three, Two, One, Go."

Kabuto just stood there in a defensive stance, waiting for you to strike.

One of you had to take the initiative, so you charged at him. A foot hit you right in your stomach and you crumbled to the ground, too fast for you to see. Itachi was fast too, but not this bad to deal with, even if you were unable to defeat Itachi. Was he going easy on you, or were you too used to Itachi's trick by now?

You got up again and waited for Kabuto to do his thing. But as more and more time passed, nothing happened. It felt like minutes and he simply just stood there, waiting for you to attack.

"Why are you not attacking!" You yelled at him.

"There are several reasons for that Sota. I want you to figure out why."

Why did everyone have to play games?

You began to run circles around Kabuto in the hope that it would help to make him more disoriented by forcing him to track your movements. Was there anything else you could use? The ground was flat and you were not allowed any tools. You had the dirt itself, while you were not going to pick up a scoop to throw it at him, kicking up dirt as you were moving would not be breaking any rules or go against the spirit of the spar.

You picked up the speed for a moment you give you a greater momentum before digging your foot into the ground to kick up a spray of dirt and swiftly charged at Kabuto again, keeping even closer attention to any counter moves this time.

As you saw him cover his face, you knew you had him. You could revenge your stomach by driving your fist into his. But alas, another foot kicked you in the ribs throwing you to the side.

"That's better Sota."

"I can do this all day long, I've had much worse thrown at me than this. Why can't you attack for once?"

"You're attacking me and I'm able to counter you every time, so why should I risk it by attacking first?"

He was right, but that didn't make it any less annoying. You wanted to cheat so much now. Explosions were out of the questions, but could you do something else...?

Maybe charging was the wrong move, what if you approached him slower?

You moved towards him with steady steps while holding your defensive stance, but faster than you could blink, you got thrown up in the air as soon as you got into his reach. With no time to adjust your bearings, you fell down again. Your foot hit the ground at an angle, making an unnatural sound in the process.

The air around you suddenly became different.

"What's going on?" You asked.

"Genjutsu, your leg is fine Sota, I wouldn't dare to injure you right before a mission, Raidou-sensei would have my neck."

"Didn't you say taijutsu only?"

"I had already cast it before I said it, so it doesn't count," he smiled.

"So what was the point if you were just going to cheat?"

"To show you that I'm not a danger, that you can trust me. I didn't attack you, I only responded when you attacked me. Please let us be friends."

"This entire gesture could be a lie," you said and casting a genjutsu in that manner was not a sign of trust.

He sighed, "Please sleep on it."

"Okay, I can do that."

No amount of sleep would make you trust that bastard.

"If only I can get myself to sleep," you turned around. "Where did Torune go?"

"He was asleep the entire time. I stayed awake to talk to you, as I guessed you wouldn't be able to sleep. But I can help you, all it takes is a simple genjutsu and you'll fall into a deep sleep if you allow me. What do you say?"

If he had some ulterior motives, he wouldn't need to ask you before casting any other genjutsu on it, so it didn't matter, and the help was needed now.

You nodded and with a quick move from Kabuto's hands, your eyes got heavy and your body gave in.

-x-

You felt a hand pushing on your side and your eyes shot open.

"Good evening Sota, it's time to go."

"Good morning sensei."

You began helping Raidou taking down the tent and gathered your things. Raidou handed each of you another bag to carry, you the smallest while he took the largest for himself.

When you arrived at the gate for Raidou to inform the guards about your departure, you could hear a voice calling out from the village.

"Sota, Sota, wait," you could hear Naruto yell.

You turned around and saw him run towards you.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were leaving bastard," he wasn't mad or anything. His face smiling.

"I'm sorry, Shisui told you right?"

He nodded. "What are you going to do? Kick some bandit's ass, save some princess from evil missing-nin?"

"We won't be doing that kind of stuff like that kid."

"Oh," Naruto replied. "What will you be doing then?"

"Mission information is secret during the mission, Sota may or may not be allowed to tell you more when we're back, but right now, we cannot tell you anything."

"Can I tag along if you're not going to do any fighting? I've not been outside the village before and I'll..."

"No, you're too young and not a genin yet."

"I'm older than Sota," Naruto protested.

"You're not a ninja and not prepared. Things might go wrong and you'll be putting your friend and the rest of the team in danger if we've to protect you too."

Naruto's facial expression started to fade and his mask dropped. His voice went from happy and excited to quite mellow. "I'm worried about my friend, Sota seem to have a lot of bad luck and have gotten injured a lotta times. Family protect each other. What if he loses his leg or something because I wasn't there and he can't be a ninja anymore?"

"Naruto, I'll be fine. Sensei is strong and won't let anything bad happen to me. I'll come back in one piece, I'll promise."

"You better keep that promise or I'll kick your ass bastard! I'll be waiting here for you till you come back."

"That..." He would figure it out later that he couldn't wait here that long. "Goodbye Naruto."

You stepped through the gate for your first time. It was time to get going, it was time to run.

-x-

This was just like at the academy, just with much more interesting scenery and you were no longer the fastest. The others had to slow down to accommodate your short legs, but your stamina should ensure that you could keep your top speed for the entire journey.

You kept silent and just focused on the journey forward until you got a bit of deja-vu. You saw a couple of puddles of water in front of you, without hesitation you got some of the explosive kunai from your pouch and threw it at them.

The others saw what you were doing and was screeching to a halt, dirt and water were spraying in every direction.

"Sota, what are you doing?!" Raidou-sensei yelled.

"I... I thought there was an ambush. The rest of the road has been dry, so I feared someone was hiding there," you explained.

"And you thought I wouldn't have noticed if someone was ambushing us?"

"I thought you were testing us, maybe testing me, so I just had to act."

"Sota, I'm not sure if I explained this well enough earlier, but I don't play around on missions. I don't put you in harm's way for a test. I'm able to detect and deal with most ambush attempts before you can even notice them, I would never let you guys deal with it for yourself. If you think we've missed someone, warn us, not just throw explosives around. That being said, your response was good if there was a danger there. Though you're missing one important fact, I'll give you a chance to notice it yourself."

You looked around at the broken ground, trying to come up with something, but you were blank.

"I've no idea."

"Look above the puddles, see the branches and the tree. The shade makes it take longer for the water to evaporate, so even if the rest of the road had time to dry, these would still be wet from the previous rain."

"Oh." Yeah, that made perfect sense. Real-life wasn't anime. Things weren't going to go bad on this mission for the sake of tension. Why did a part of your brain still not take this seriously?

"Let me repair the road before we go," Raidou said and performed an earth Jutsu to fill in the holes you'd made.

"Sensei, do you think we could take a bit of a break? I'm a bit shaky," Torune asked.

"I don't see why not," Raidou replied and raised the ground into a makeshift bench for you to sit on.

You sat down and took a sip of your water.

"You need to practise more with those together with the team if you want to use them around us, you didn't do anything wrong now, but in a proper fight, unless you've control over your teammates and the teammates are aware of your attack, they might accidentally get into the blast zone when the tags explode."

"You're right I guess, you guys depends a lot on close-range attacks. While I don't have any tricks other than the explosives I make, I'm physically weaker than everyone else, while I've got the stamina to last, that wouldn't matter if people can overpower me before they get tired."

"

"I'm sure we can figure something out, you're still young. You could become a kind of ambusher for the team until you learn more. Do like you did today, open up with a strong enough attack and let us do the rest and just focus on defending yourself."

"I don't want to be useless, I want to help out the team in fights too."

"We'll take it slow early on right, I'll promise you that you'll be prepared for the Chuunin exam, while you might not win, I would hope that you could give Kabuto the push he needs to get promoted."

"Do you have any idea on any ninjutsu I could use in battle that doesn't endanger my team?" You asked him.

"Not at the moment, but I'll ask around when we come back. If you can figure out some kind of seal that affects everyone, but gives us the edge, that would be nice."

Thinking about it for a moment, it became obvious that any defensive seal could be useful, defend against an attack you were not using.

"I'll work on it sensei," you replied.

"Good, now do you think they've had long enough break?"

You took another sip of your water bottle before nodding.

"All right boys, we need to get going again," Raidou sensei called out.

-x-

After many more hours of running, you saw a tall tower in the distance.

"That's our first stop boys," Raidou said and pointed at the building.

It laid right off the road, fenced off by metal fencing. It looked more like it was to warn civilians rather than to keep anyone actually out.

"Be careful with the metal rods in the ground," Raidou said.

"What are they?" You asked.

"They connect to the tower, so if anyone tries to attack it, someone can discharge a large amount of electricity and fry anyone standing near one of the spikes," Raidou-sensei explained.

"But they are everywhere," you pointed out.

"Exactly, wouldn't be a good trap if people could dodge them."

"I guess you're right."

It wasn't the only security measurement. The wall of the tower was laid with spikes, so no hope of climbing it from the ground, and you couldn't jump over them either. The last piece of defence you could see was a metal cage surrounding the base of the tower.

"What is your purpose here," A Konoha nin at the top of the tower yelled down at your team.

"We're Team 4 with supplies from Konoha," Raidou yelled back.

"Alright, you can enter."

Sensei guided you through the metal cage, as you went around the tower to get to the door, you noticed that you were walking on metal pipes with many small holes in them, it looked like something was flowing inside them. Oil perhaps? So if any attacker passed the lighting rods, they'll be burnt inside here before they could reach the door. Effective but brutal. Hopefully, they wouldn't activate it by a mistake. You hadn't brought with you any fire absorption seals, you definitely should for the next mission.

Raidou pushed a card inside a slot on the door, moments later it opened and you followed him in alongside Kabuto and Torune.

"You're earlier than we expected, got a new member I see," the Konoha-nin inside looked at you.

"Uzumaki Sota, nice to meet you," you said.

"I hadn't expected him to keep up as well as he did, so I apologize for being here too early."

"No need to apologize for that Raidou, life here is mostly boring. You're more likely to see action in a graveyard than here. And Sota, I'm Harada-san."

You nodded in approval.

"Dinner isn't ready yet, help me with the supplies Raidou will you. And kids, you can go to the common area, I assume you know very well where it is by now Kabuto?"

Kabuto nodded.

You handed your bag to Raidou and followed Kabuto up the stairs, but he held you back by the shirt.

"Just go up you two, I need to talk to Sota in private," Raidou said and turned to you when they were out of ears range. "Please be nicer to Kabuto, I expect all of you to behave on missions, and part of that involves keeping each others morale up. So whatever issue you have with him, bury it, and if you need to, pretend. Look at this as a bonus mission, make Kabuto think you're his friend and it's up to you if it's for real or not."

"Why do you want me to lie to him?" You asked.

"Go up and join them," he said, dodging the question.

When you got up into the hallway above, you couldn't see anyone and the doors were not revealing their content. And there were several more floors above, so you knew better than to try all of them for several reasons.

"Kabuto, Torune," you called out, hoping that one of them would hear you.

A few seconds later a door at the end of the corridor opened and you could see Torune's head poking out.

"In here," he said before quickly going back in.

As you entered the room, you saw him playing Shogi with Kabuto using what looked like a chess clock.

No wonder why he was in a hurry. With just a few seconds between each move, it was much faster than the calm pace between you and Shikamaru.

It was too quick for you to even follow their moves, the only proper sign of how it was going was Torune looking slightly more frustrated before he finally resigned.

"Do you know how to play?" Kabuto asked with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, I've played a couple of times with a classmate, but this is going too fast for me."

"So you're up for a few rounds then, I can set it up for you so you can play against Torune," he said and started to move the pieces back to their starting position.

"I just said it is too fast for me," you grumbled.

"That's fine, just use your time early on and don't worry about running out of time."

"But I'll lose," you retorted.

"This is just a game, you can lose and learn from your mistakes. It is good training, there is no use of being able to make perfect plans in a real battle, you need to think on the spot and make the best moves in the time available, even if it's not the best move. If you can make your opponent struggle to come up with a new plan, you'll quickly win," Kabuto explained. "And sometimes when the ninja here doesn't have a lot of time, being quick ensures that they'll get to finish most of their games."

"All Right, I'll play you Torune," you said.

He put a smile on his face and made his first move and pushed down on the clock.

Every second felt like a missed opportunity as you tried to think about how to open this. How much damage could you do in your first move anyway? So you followed your gut feeling and made your move.

Move after move, both your position on the board and the clock got weaker. You clutched your head as you tried coming up with something that could dig your out this situation.

"Relax Sota, being stressed out doesn't help you think clearer," Kabuto said.

"I know, I know," you replied. It was easier said than done.

"Just keep on going till you can relax."

"I'm trying," you mumbled back and you looked at the clock counting down to zero.

Kabuto was right, you couldn't act like this. It was how your difficult battles tended to end, you got more and more frustrated until you did something stupid and lost consciousness.

"Again?" You asked Torune.

He nodded back and you put back the pieces.

Before you could make your first move, he swiftly switched two pieces you had misplaced.

Okay Sota, this is the plan. Don't look at the clock, it doesn't exist, just move in a reasonable time. Control your breath, in and out at a steady pace.

This was much better and you played better, yes you played slower, but you just had to live with that. But now you were at least able to keep up with him and make traps for him.

It wouldn't last forever and soon the clock gave a small beep to alert you that your time had run out.

"Kabuto, I'm a bit confused. First, you say I need to play fast since I won't have any time to plan in the field, but now you tell me to take it slow. I lose anyway, so what's the point?"

"What happened your first game?"

"I lost," you replied.

"What more?"

"I ran out of time and was about to be crushed on the board."

"So what does that tell you?"

"That playing fast isn't working."

"And what happened the next game?"

"I lost because I was too slow. There is no winning."

"But you didn't lose on the board, with practice you'll speed up and learn better time management."

"You're right I guess."

"And there is something else I want to show you," he said and rearranged the pieces to a previous position.

"What was your plan here?"

"I had formed a threat against his position and was trying to attack him, but he managed to defend himself in the end."

"The threat of a move is often better than the move itself. By keeping the possibility open, Torune would have to take that into account for every move he made, so instead of attacking right away, you could try to improve your position until you're sure it works. And if the enemy isn't familiar with you, they'll just have to take your word that you're able to properly execute the plan and that you're not bluffing."

"How do I bluff in battle?"

"Pretend you're doing one thing while you're doing another. You don't need to be able to blow fireballs to make your enemy think you can. Make the hand signs, suck in air and blow out. When they realize that you're bluffing, they'll have dodged it like any normal fireball."

"It doesn't seem smart to rely on fake attacks?"

"Would you bet on your enemy not knowing the attack they're using against you?"

"No, because if I'm wrong I'll risk being roasted."

"Exactly, and you can even use it more than once as they don't know if you were bluffing about bluffing and the next time it's real. But if you know real attacks that can be used, you're better off using those while you've chakra."

"Thanks."

"Are you ready for food," you could hear Raidou ask from the doorway.

You nodded and helped Torune packing up the shogi board.

-x-

The dining hall was filled with people already, but there were four empty seats for you at the end of the table. Raidou must have reserved them for you.

"First time you're here?" an unknown ninja next you asked. You turned to him, short brown hair, brown eyes, quite nondescript.

You nodded.

"I'm Suzuki Haruki," he introduced himself.

"I'm Uzumaki Sota," you replied.

"Do you want to take a look at the top of the tower?"

"No thanks," you replied.

"No need to be shy or are you afraid of the height?"

"I'm not afraid," you calmly replied.

"I understand I was also afraid of heights when I was your age."

"I'm not afraid, I just don't care."

"So if you're chasing someone, all they need to do is to climb up a tree and their safe from you?"

"Even if I was afraid of height, that wouldn't be a problem. I could blow up the tree they're sitting in or shooting explosive kunai up into the branches. But if it will make you stop your childish teasing, I'll take a look."

"Aren't you a bit young to call anyone childish?"

"Aren't you a bit old to be childish?"

"Being a bit childish makes life much more fun. You should be excited about new experiences. But somehow you seem like a grumpy old person trapped in the body of a seven-year-old."

"Let me just finish eating, I need food after running all day. "

-x-

Suzuki was guiding you to the top. And there was quite a lot of steps to traverse, the disadvantage of your short legs was even more apparent now than normal. It would be much easier to just walk up the walls than this. Though the spikes on the outside stopped that plan.

There had to be a better way to deal with stairs. Would body flicker fling you up? You should ask Shisui to teach you when you got back.

How much could you even use it? With lots of chakra, how long could you keep it up? Truth to be told, you'd no idea how it worked, all you know was that it was not teleporting and it wasn't perfect or else people would use it all the time, and so far you couldn't remember seeing any use of it.

But with everything else bad, these stairs didn't last forever and you were soon at the top.

Views like this didn't usually excite you, but taking a look at the equipment up here wasn't too bad.

The outer edge of the tower was filled with several ballistas and the bolts were loaded with large explosive seals. So that was were Shisui had gotten the idea of firing tags with your bow.

"You want to try firing it?" Shizuki asked.

"Wouldn't it be a waste of resources?" You asked.

"We're supposed to test those regularly, make sure neither we or them get rusty. Sure we don't have a ton of tags but then we don't have a ton of actual targets to use them on either. Wait a minute, aren't you the kid who got blown up by Fugaku's son? You're still okay with explosions after what happened?"

"Yes, they are still fun and I might be a bit obsessed with them. And I might have scared my teammates earlier by blowing a puddle of water that I thought was enemy ninja"

"They'll get over it, surprises are ninja's worst enemy, but as with every other enemy you need to know how to deal with it."

"But if you're prepared for everything, is there anything left to be surprised by?"

"Exactly. The best way to keep yourself and others safe, is to make sure you don't have any enemies to begin with. Though you cannot be prepared for everything, and when you think you've prepared for everything the moon will wake up and reveal itself to be an Eldritch abomination."

"So if I prepare for the moon to wake up and try to kill us all, I'm set?"

"Don't worry Sota, the moon is just a piece of rock far far away."

If only you knew.

"And how would you even prepare to kill off an Eldritch Abomination, the moon might look small, but it is much bigger than anything else you've seen."

Without Matatabi, Akatsuki would be no way to revive the 10-tails. That's how you prepare. Though that was easier said than done.

"I'll make sure that the moon can't wake up," you answered.

"Enough about non-existing threats. Get your hands on the handles and start moving it around. It can be a bit heavy for you, but you should be able to move it around."

You nodded and got a grip. It was a bit of a struggle to get it into motion, but you got it moving.

"What should I aim for?" You asked.

"You see the other holes in the grass over there?" He asked pointed to a piece of land that by the look of it had been hit a lot in the past.

You nodded.

"Just aim around there."

You turned around the handles and slowly got it into position.

"How do I fire?"

"Just press hard on the lever down on the floor," Suzuki suggested.

You stepped on it, but nothing happened.

"Try harder."

It didn't help. You could stand on it and it wouldn't budge.

"I forgot that children are light as feathers. Let me help you."

He pushed it down with ease and the large bolt flew through the air and as soon as it had dug into the ground it exploded throwing dirt up into the air.

Explosions would never stop cheering you up.

"How do you make sure the bolts explode when they hit the ground?" You asked.

"Uhh, I've no idea. We just get them shipped from Konoha, all I need to know is that we can fire them and they go boom when they hit the target."

"Can I take a look at one?"

"Ah, you make your own seals, yeah I remember Genma bragging about how good of a teacher he is."

"I quickly moved on from him, so can I take a look?"

"Sure I don't see the harm," he replied.

You picked up the stack of blank paper and a brush from your bag and started studying the seal.

It wasn't very complex as you quickly noticed with everything divided into four clear parts. First, it detected if he was moving quickly which feed into a part which could detect if the seal had stopped moving before sending the signal into the explosive part blowing it up. And of course, a primer in the start to prevent it from going off in transit.

You carefully copied it down, leaving out the explosive part as including it was just an unnecessary risk till you were able to study it closer.

"Thanks for the help, I was unsure how to deal with it, as trying to time myself before throwing was too unreliable."

"You're welcome. I hope I'll never become your enemy in the future because at the pace you seem to improve you'll outrank me in a couple of years."

"Are you a Chuunin or Jounin?" You asked.

"I'm a Chuunin, most of us are with one or two jounin commanding the place. Genin are only here for short visits like your team. It's not a bad place to be stationed when you get promoted, we're not just watching out for threats in the area, we also distribute supplies some of the supplies we get from Konoha to the nearby towers and do small missions in the area.

"The fire in the middle here isn't just to keep us warm. Our secondary purpose is to relay signals between the borderlands and the village. See the glow in the distance," he said and pointed to a faint glow in the horizon.

"Yeah."

"We've powder we use to flare up the fire in different colours. Apart from a few instances, I can't tell you, we just relay things without having any idea what is being said. So if anyone captures this place, they'll get nothing useful from intercepting the communication and we've some trickery that prevents you from seeing the fire from the ground. But that won't happen even in war times. It's the paradox of fortifications like this. We've got the most firepower but will use the least as the enemy will just go for a target further away. But we can at least provide a safe haven for nearby friendly ninja if a problem occurs and along with patrols, it makes this road quite safe.

"Aren't you telling me a bit much, aren't some of this sensitive information?"

"Not really, even a mediocre spy would quickly figure out this on their own and it is not like we rely too much on any of this to stay secret. So I see nothing wrong teaching you how things work out here. You seem like a smart kid, so I know you won't be foolish enough to try to use any of this to attack us."

"I'll promise that I'll leave you alone then if I ever decide to leave and turn on the village. But if you'll think you'll get beaten by a seven-year-old, you might try to up the defence."

"Thanks, now I can sleep safely at night," he laughed.

"I think I'm started to get sleepy," you yawned.

"I'll follow down to where you'll be sleeping."

-x-

As you were laying there in your bed, your thoughts went back to Kabuto. There was simply no way to prove he was not a spy. Yes, he was friendly, nice and helpful. But so was Kabuto during the Chuunin exam. So if he was an Orochimaru spy, how he acted now was exactly how he'd act.

If Orochimaru would have the chance to recruit a Jinchuuriki he'd take it. Especially since in his eyes, you were an easily influenced seven-year-old boy. So why not task Kabuto to recruit you. It wasn't like he was in any hurry either, so there was no reason to suspect any funny behaviour from him in the near future, just slow play over time. Originally Kabuto spent many years in Konoha before his betrayal was out in the open with him casting the big feathery Genjutsu during Sasuke and Gaara's fight.

But if this was the plan, Orochimaru would be wrong. You were not an easily influenced seven-year-old. There was nothing Kabuto or anything anyone else could say to make you go against the village and leave. Sure, you didn't have any inherent loyalty to the village, but it was still your home, you were stupid enough to become a ninja and you had friends here you wanted to protect. So you were committed to sticking to it and where would you even go? You'd be chased down in an instant to retrieve the two-tails.

"Problem sleeping again Sota?" Kabuto asked. Where did he come from? He wasn't sleeping next to you.

What should you say...

"Do you want help? I can cast the genjutsu on you again."

Again, if he wanted to do something nefarious, he didn't need your consent, so you just nodded.

A big yawn later and you were out.

-x-

Next morning Kabuto woke you up. "Good morning Sota."

"Good morning Buto," you said half asleep.

"We should take a bath before breakfast, they've quite nice baths here" he suggested.

"Will Raidou and Torune join us?"

"Torune is too shy and Raidou likes to take his baths in private if he can. Rumours have it that he has a thing for rubber ducks and no one has been able to disprove it yet."

"So just us two…"

"Anything wrong?"

How did you feel about it? You didn't like this. This was not the way to convince you that he was not a spy.

"It will make you feel nice, we'll have a lot of running today too, you must be sore?"

"I don't feel sore, my body heals fast. But I guess I might need a bath, so I'll join you."

"Get your towel and a change of clothes and I'll show the way."

-x-

The water was nice and hot, so it was worth coming down here. You still didn't like being here along with Kabuto who sat across of you.

"Is there anything bothering since you're struggling to sleep?" He asked.

"No," it was none of his business at the moment.

"Are you still living at the orphanage?"

"No."

"You're not very talkative, I'm not making you uncomfortable am I?"

Surely he knew what he was doing.

"It's just that there isn't much to say about, I don't remember anything from before a year ago. I don't remember anything from any orphanage."

"Oh. Have you thought about visiting it again? I'm sure sensei can help you track it down."

"What is the point of going back to a place I don't remember and feel no connection to?"

"Maybe it will help you remember? Maybe you've some friends there that miss you?"

Something in you broke down or at least that would explain why you were crying with your face buried in your knees.

"Sota…"

You blocked out his voice and flailed your arms around for a moment. How could you cope with this when you didn't even know what was wrong?

You weren't able to fully understand what was going on around you, just that the water disappeared around you and you gradually got dryer and then clothed.

All you could feel right now was the desire to lie down and not wake up again.

-x-

"Sota, are you better now?" you heard sensei's voice asking.

You sat yourself up in the bed and turned to him. "Yeah, just a bit hungry"

The bad feeling was gone and you still had no idea what had felt so wrong. Last time something like that had happened was with the thunderstorm, was there some sort of connection here?

You could smell the smell of hot soup.

"I brought some food for you, you've slept past breakfast. We may be a bit late to Suna, but don't worry about it. Do you need help eating?"

"I can eat on my own," you replied and grabbed the bowl.

"Just so you know, Kabuto didn't tell me much of details. So if you want me to know, you can tell me when you're ready."

"It's nothing."

"All right. Should I get more soup for you or anything else you want?"

There was still some soup left, but you were not hungry for more of it, so you handed it to Raidou. You wanted something sweet.

"I'm not hungry for soup, but do you have dango?"

"I'm sorry. You know what, when we're back in Konoha I'll buy you some."

"Thanks, sensei."

"Are you ready to go or do you need more time?" Raidou asked.

"We're already late, so we cannot delay things further," you said.

"I'm not leaving without knowing that my team is okay, this mission isn't that time-sensitive, we can afford to be a day late if so needed."

"It doesn't affect me. I react to memories I no longer have. As if there is someone else inside me that is breaking down and taking me with them."

"Then I'll trust your judgement, your stuff is already packed so don't worry about that. I'll go fetch Kabuto and Torune."

How was Itachi doing right now? He was strong, he'd deal with this and you could just hope things were okay between him and Sasuke when you arrived back home. Their bond was too strong to be broken by what had happened. Itachi would help Sasuke out with the training and he would shoot fireballs in no time and without any graduation exam for Sasuke, he wouldn't be worried about his brother getting hurt by graduating too early. Everything would go back to how it should be.

Yeah, that was the right way to think about matters. Your mood was back up, and you felt you could conquer the world right now. You grabbed your bag and headed outside where the rest of the team was waiting for you.

Another day of running was ahead of you and it didn't matter right now, you were going to push through it like it was nothing.

-x-

You could feel the climate getting warmer and warmed as you approached the border.

Raidou slowed down as you approached the river.

"This is the last chance to fill up your water bottles before we enter the desert, so make sure to fill up."

The bottle salesman might have sold you a bit too much, as there was plenty of water left even though you hadn't refilled them since leaving Konoha. He seemed nice and helping. But of course, it was just a ploy. He advised you against some of his own products, which meant that he was purposefully stocked up goods he didn't intend to sell in order to seem more helping. Danzo would be proud of that sneakiness.

"Sota, do you know how to run in the sand?" Raidou asked.

"Uhh."

"You know how to walk on water, trees?" You could hear the worry in his voice.

"Yeah, I can do both."

With a sigh of relief, he continued. "Good, it is almost like water walking, just easier. You want to spread out your chakra when kicking off and landing, but other than that, you don't need to worry about balance too much. The important part is to avoid having your feet dig into the sand. Got it?"

You nodded. It sounded easy enough, but that was also your thoughts the first time you tried tree walking.

"I don't want to stop in the middle of the desert, so if you need a break, now is the time."

It looked like Torune was in the mood for a break, so you took a sip of water before dropping to the ground.

What this how life would be from now on? Lots of running from place to place? Though in a few years, you'd probably look back at this as relaxing. Konoha wouldn't want you as a glorified currier forever. Be it for your sealing abilities or the cat.

Torune laid down next to you, but he didn't say anything.

"Is this all you do, running from place to place?" You asked him. "I heard rumours about Raidou-sensei preferring missions with more fighting."

"Not with us, but I know he takes missions on the side while we've time off to train or rest. We did a lot of search and rescue with Hana. But without her tracking abilities, I guess we'll do less of it from now on."

"Your bugs can't be used to track people?"

"No, they're too small for that. They're mostly useful for hurting people, but I don't like using them for that. So I hope Sensei won't take any missions requiring that."

"Oh."

"But it doesn't mean we're not useful here. If we're getting attacked, I'm prepared to do my part, even if it means someone getting hurt," Torune said.

"I know, I just think I'll get bored doing this for years. I kind of wish for action, even if I don't want to hurt people either. Some people need to be taken down, but not sure if they deserve to be blown up."

You were in a bit of a pickle. You were encouraged from several sources to be a dangerous force. If those puddles of water actually had demon brothers in them, they might very well be dead now. So when you said you didn't want to hurt people, who were speaking? The upstanding you that knew that potentially killing people weren't the way to live life. Or Sota who had been raised to think about things quite differently and was heavily influenced by your actions. You were giving him all sorts of deadly tools and expect him no not use them? Or did you just blame these tendencies on Sota, while you were the real problem? One thing was for certain, some of the explosives tags in your bag would kill someone one day, and it would be all your fault.

"Life will find a way. You should find someone who can teach you. I would help, but most of what I know involves bugs."

"You're right I guess. Water could be useful but I'm not sure if I've got an affinity for it."

Water would be very easy to put in seals, but could you use them for anything useful once sealed?

"You should ask sensei if he can test it?"

"I'll probably have fire," you said. With Matatabi's blue fire, it made the most sense.

"Alright boys, ready to get going again?" Raidou asked. Not a long break, but if the others were okay with his impatience, so were you.

You nodded and got up, it was time to face the desert.

-x-

The run through the sand was a lot less bad than expected. The air was dry but without the sun. The sandy landscape was rather a bit chilly which helped cool you down from all the running. It was just in the last hour or so you started to feel it. But Raidou made sure you drank more than enough water to keep yourself hydrated.

The entrance to Suna was much more majestic in real life than in the anime. The sun shining through the gap in the cliffside. Raidou-sensei had slowed down, probably as a sign of non-aggression or something before slowly approached the guards.

"State your name and purpose," one of the Suna guards demanded.

"I'm Namiashi Raidou and this is Team 4, Uzumaki Sota, Kabuto and Aburame Torune. We're here with deliveries from Konoha," Sensei explained as gestured towards each of you. "Just some letters and documents." He patted his bag for emphasis.

"Wait here and I'll take a look," the guard said and went back to the guard booth and checked his papers before heading back towards you.

"Everything seems to be in order. You need to be out again within 24 hours, cause no trouble," he said and stepped out of your way.

The cliff walls were quite menacing as you walked through them.

"Sensei, how many traps are there in here?" You asked.

"Plenty to kill us several times, but Suna isn't our enemy, you've nothing to worry about as long as we don't get on their bad side," he replied.

That was reassuring.

While the city inside was decently sized, it didn't help you feel a bit locked in as the cliffs encompassed you in every direction, partially putting the village in the shadow of the sun.

"I'm sure you're tired, we'll get to the inn and get some food and then you can sleep. I'll handle the deliveries."

"That sounds nice," you said.

"I didn't know you could get tired Sota, you have the hardest time keeping up and it looks like you're in the best shape of us," Kabuto said.

"You make me feel a bit uncomfortable," you replied.

You didn't know why just compliments like that felt a bit weird sometimes. With too high expectations, all you can do is to fail.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean it that way. We should hurry to the inn before it gets too hot outside."

-x-

Getting some proper food was nice. A local dish you didn't catch the name of, but it both smelled and tasted nice. None of you said much during the meal and when the last piece of food had gone down, you could finally go to bed.

You all had to share a room, but it was at least nice and chill as the sun had yet to warm up the room.

"I'll go and deliver the documents, just go to bed, no need to wait for me," Raidou said and left.

Hours and hours of running in the last days did make sleep easy today, so you didn't need any help from Kabuto. It probably didn't hurt that you'd no worries on your mind for the moment.

-x-

"Wake up everyone," Raidou called out to wake you from your sleep.

"I don't want to stay here more than I need to, but there is something I need to do before leaving and it would be beneficial if you could help take a bit of attention away from me in case they've someone watching us. I shouldn't have too much of a problem without it, but it never hurts stacking the odds a bit in our favour."

"What do you want us to do sensei?" Kabuto asked.

"Get dressed and wander around the village for a bit. Come back within an hour and go separate ways. And Sota, you don't need to go further away from the inn than what you feel comfortable with. It's not like they're going to pay too much attention to you anyway."

By the looks of it, Torune didn't look too happy with it, but he raised no objections.

You put on your clothes, got your bag and fastened your weapons. Kabuto was already out the door. It looked like Torune was deliberately taking it slow.

"It will be fine Torune, you're not doing anything bad so there is nothing to fear."

It didn't look like it helped him any, his head seemed to have fallen lower. The fact that he was older and more experienced than you may have made him think he should have managed this task better.

"This is not the place for me. Dry and dead, my bugs hate this place. I don't like being alone with strangers. I'm not feeling well right now. Being around you the last days made me..." he didn't finish that sentence, but it was clear that he was talking about his cousin.

"Stay here, I don't think sensei would mind. See you later, " you said and left him for himself.

-x-

You had one person in mind right now, one other redhead. Were you going to do something incredibly stupid? Yes. But there was no one reading your mind right now, so there was no one to stop you or yell at you to not do it.

You'd made a decision. To see if you could become an early friend of Gaara before things got too bad and before the raccoon could poison his mind too much. But you were no Naruto, so a friendship might be a bit too much to ask for, but maybe you could be a friendly face. That when he revisited the village in about five years he'll recognize you, perhaps second-guessing the orders he'd be given. Maybe you could use this to reason with him later on?

But where could you find him? You walked down a road to look for someone you could ask for help. Your target was a middle-aged man, maybe if he'd children of his own, he'd be friendly enough to help.

You walked up to him. "Excuse me, this is my first time in Suna and I'm not very familiar with this place and I kind of lost my team, is there somewhere I shouldn't go?"

"Where did you find that headband?" The man asked looking at your forehead.

"It's mine, I earned it by graduating in Konoha."

"You know it's a serious offence to impersonate ninja, be it foreign or Suna ninja?"

"I'm a ninja," you tried not to get too worked up. You turned around to show him your weapons, as you wouldn't have those kinds of weapons if you were just a kid playing ninja. "Why do you doubt me." He had a bit of a concern on your face. It was clear that he was just worried about you getting in trouble, so better not get too annoyed at him.

"You're tiny, I've seen no ninja that small, though I guess size could deceive, you're the same size," the man stopped himself.

"I'm sorry, you see that tall building over there," he said and pointed to a round tower in the distance," don't go near it, especially now at night and you should be safe.

"Thanks, sir," you replied.

"Do you want me to help you find your team?" He asked.

"That won't be necessary," you said and walked away.

You needed some kind nickname or reputation so people would start to respect and not think of you as a little kid who was playing ninja with a stolen headband.

What options were there? Sota of the Sharingan? Itachi wouldn't end up in a situation where he'd give up any of this eyes to anyone but Sasuke. And Shisui would never give up his to you, you were too close to Danzo for the moment for that to be a thinkable option and Danzo would definitely take them from you.

Sota of the Red Sand, that was not one for you. There was not much sand near Konoha and you weren't going to spill a lot of blood.

Sota of the Body Flicker. Sorry Shisui, but that name is just underwhelming.

Demon of the Hidden Leaf. It would definitely ensure that people didn't mess with you, but you had already graduated so you weren't likely to kill your entire class at age nine. And you didn't want to be associated with that kind of things.

No, you'd probably be "Wonderkid Sota who ended up being quite average in the end."

After a short detour, so the man didn't notice that you were heading towards the place he just told you to avoid, you turned towards the tower, you wanted to see Gaara. Though you weren't sure if you could do anything for him at the moment

People didn't pay you much attention as you walked through the streets, just as Raidou had predicted. You hoped no Suna ANBU would pick up your plan and why would they?

For every step you took towards the tower, your body got tenser and tenser. No one had stopped you yet and you were finally at the foot of the tower.

This really was a stupid idea and you were going to regret it. The sensible voice in you would yell at you to run back to the inn and check on Torune. The stupid part of you who had guided you so far in the world told you to hurry up and climb the tower.

Every step you took up the steep walls you wondered what was wrong with you. As you climbed over the ledge, you were meet with an empty roof. Of course there was no one up here.

This was the right place right, it wasn't bait to see if you were going where you weren't supposed to go? But even then, why would Gaara be out here right at this moment? No, people weren't going to be somewhere just because you wanted to meet them.

It was time to turn back for real now, you turned around and moved towards the ledge when you could hear footsteps behind you.

"Are you here to kill me?" A soft chilling voice asked you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it. I've no idea how to write a younger version of Kabuto and Torune, but I tried my best and the only way to learn is to try.
> 
> And as always, I'm happy for every comment I get, be it short or long. And I hope all is well with you during this situation.


	9. Chapter 9

"You smell like Yashamaru, before he," Gaara was shaking a bit before looking straight at you. "Die!" He yelled and launched his sand at you.

You threw yourself over the ledge before the sand could grab you, dealing with the fall damage was better than being crushed.

But you didn't fall far before your right leg was being yanked back up again.

"Fuck," you grunted as Gaara was slowly lifting you several meters above the roof.

The match was on and there were two seconds left on your clock, running out of time here didn't mean the loss of a game, but death, so you had to find the right move.

Alright, Kabuto, your advice better help me now or I'm going to take revenge the day you decide to resurrect me with your Edo Tensei.

You quickly formed a couple of hand seals. Tiger, Snake and then pointing towards him with four fingers as you yelled out. "Forbidden Curse, Life Drain."

Tiger to charge at him, a snake to bite and four for death. It made sense in your head and it made you feel it was more convincing, but you kind of needed Gaara to see the symbolism too for it to work.

"What did you do?" He asked as the sand was constricting harder around your leg. It started to get painful, but you had to push through it.

"Do you feel your heart? It is beating faster right?" You asked planting the suggestion in his head. "Is it getting harder to breathe?"

Gaara eyes widened and he clutched his heart. "Stop it!" He screamed.

"If you kill me, it will continue until you die," you threatened. "If you become my friend, I'll stop it so none of us has to die." You tried your best smiling at him while resisting the pain.

The sand started to crawl further up your body.

"We're both the same Gaara." Redheads, green eyes, and Jinchuuriki. "Let us be friends so…" The sudden pain stopped you from continuing.

Gaara's sand started to constrict around your chest, making it hard to breathe properly and thus hard to speak. But the sand had stopped trying to engulf your body and was now at a standstill.

Wasn't this the time for you to wake up with Matabi demanding her power? It was too late for you to grab any explosive kunai, your arms caught up by his sand, and your bag had fallen to the ground. There was nothing you could do.

Why did you have to be so incredibly stupid? Dead after less than a year in this world. You had accomplished nothing. What was the point of being so paranoid? Surely there shouldn't be so hard to find a place in Konoha to figure out a plan to deal with the massacre together with Itachi and Shisui. But paranoia was a hard nut to crack. Discussing a conspiracy like that could easily cause you to disappear, or if the Uchiha figured out what Danzo was up to, you'd spark a civil war.

The pressure on your chest suddenly disappeared and you gasped for air. You started falling as the sand loosened its grip on you, but you were lucky to land in Gaara's soft sand.

You turned towards him and saw him smiling with a ball of sand in his hands. You got up, it was time to remove the pretend curse you put on him. He seemed calm and peaceful, not trying to kill you and not begging you to not kill him.

Did he finally trust you? Why delay this long?

What had gone on in his head at this moment? Was the death of his uncle less impactful than you had thought? Surely you couldn't have this much of an effect on him. You were not Naruto and had not punched him yet. Or was the real effect not the death of his uncle, but the continual loneliness after that?

"Curse removal, life drain," you said forming a bird seal, before lifting your hands up in the air, to tell the curse to fly away and leave Gaara alone.

As your hands feel down to your side again, kunai was flying at you, Gaara's sand swiftly blocked it to protect you. You really had unlocked the secret Uzumaki bloodline of quickly making friends with new people. And that without even punching Gaara.

You saw several Suna ANBU around you with their weapons drawn, approaching you with clear hostile intent as more and more kunai was headed towards you. Without Gaara dutifully blocking all of them, you'd be a pincushion now. There was nothing you could do other than to grab your bag and flee, hoping they wouldn't pursue you further. Fighting them was out of the question for several reasons. A stray kunai graced your right leg as you were jumping off the ledge. It stung a bit but nothing to worry about, it would heal up pretty quickly and if you just changed your pants, no one would be any wiser.

Your brain went on auto-pilot through the streets. You had no idea where you were going as you had paid no attention to where you were going previously. But somehow you arrived at the inn in your panicked state.

You couldn't sense anyone chasing you. It was time to relax and slow down your breathing to prevent your team from becoming suspicious of you.

Torune paid you no attention as you walked into the room and neither Kabuto nor Raidou had arrived back yet, so this was your chance to sneak into the bedroom and switch clothes to hide your encounter with the ANBU.

As you pulled off your pants you noticed that the cut had already stopped bleeding, so there was no reason to fetch the bandage. But it was a bit red around the cut and touching it caused it to burn a bit. Was that a normal consequence of your healing ability?

Better to not worry about it. You managed to survive the explosive tag thrown by Naruto and Sasuke, so this was nothing and you didn't want to explain to Raidou how you had been cut unless you really had to. You sealed away the offending clothing and headed back out to Torune.

"Are you okay?" You asked him.

Torune simply shook his head in response.

What to do? Giving him a bit of a distance seemed to be the easy way out of this, but also the cowards way out of it.

Kabuto and Raidou would be back soon and you would be on the way back home. The green grass, wildflowers and the forest on the other side of the desert would probably cheer him up again, he just needed to push through this slump and everything would be fine.

You sat down opposite of him, but you didn't have to wait long before both Kabato and Raidou was back.

"It was a close call, I was almost caught, but some ruckus somewhere else pulled them away from me. Did any of you see anything while you were out?" Sensei asked.

"I heard something, but I didn't see anything," you lied.

"And you Torune, didn't you see anything?" Raidou asked him.

"I…" Torune didn't have an answer.

"Sensei, he didn't feel well, so I told him to stay here," you said.

"Sota, it is good that you care about your teammates, but you're not doing him any favours by letting him wiggle himself out of things he doesn't like."

Was it worth arguing with him or not?

"He's not doing well on these kinds of missions," you explained trying not to get too angry. "Why are you pushing him to this, aren't the plenty of other missions we can take?"

"Sota, I'm the boss here. If I tell any of you to do something, you obey, is that clear?" Raidou asked.

"Yes Sensei," you replied softly.

"Now go and pack your stuff as fast as you can, we need to leave this place."

You nodded and went to pack your bag.

A few minutes later the four of you were heading towards the gate.

"Hold it," one of the guards yelled as you approached the guard booth.

"Is something wrong?" Raidou-sensei asked.

"Your mission here was to deliver some documents right? Let me see confirmation from the recipient?" The guard requested.

"Here," Raidou handed him a slip of paper. He looked composed and didn't seem to worry about this at all, despite it being an irregular occurrence. "You usually don't care about these kinds of things, is there a problem?"

"You've been acting suspiciously and there was an incident here not long ago. I need to check his bag," the guard said and pointed to you.

"Hand it over," Raidou told you.

The guard grabbed it from your shoulder and sat it down on the counter, and began looking through all your paper tags.

"What is he doing with that many explosive tags on a delivery mission?" The guard asked.

"It never hurts to be prepared, you never know what dangers you'll face," Raidou explained for you.

"Stop with your lies Konoha-nin. You know perfectly well that this isn't a normal amount for a genin to carry around."

"He's making them himself, he is quite a prodigy, but I've neglected to tell him that it might send the wrong signal," Raidou explained.

"Likely. Let me take a look at that sword," he said and pulled it from your back.

"Listen here, we need to get going, Torune here is not feeling well. You're wasting your time here. Let's say Sota here was trying to blow something up, why hasn't anyone heard any explosions?" Sensei argued. But the guard's face didn't change. "Please, let us be reasonable here, it is Sota's first mission, he's bound to make some mistakes."

"Don't tell me how to do my job!" the guard shouted, "I recognize this kind of sword, you can leave the village if you want, but we'll take the boy into questioning."

"Very well, I guess we don't have any choice," Raidou replied and signalled something to Kabuto with his right hand.

Before Kabuto could follow through with the order, you heard a new voice arriving the scene. "What is going on here?" You turned around and saw an ANBU agent approaching you, quite similar looking to one of your attackers.

Was he one of them? Was he going to expose you? And why did your leg start to itch so much, was this nervousness or something else? With a few subtle movements, you hopefully managed to scratch the itch without drawing too much attention to yourself.

"We were just about to bring this kid in for some _friendly_ interrogation," the guard explained.

"Let them go," the ANBU agent ordered.

"We have evidence that he was trying to blow up something here in the village." the guard said and pointed to your bag. "It is full of explosives."

The ANBU took a quick look at your tags before putting them back in the bag and threw it to you.

"I've kept an eye on the boy while he was here and he hasn't tried anything."

"But…" the guard tried to protest.

"If you've any problem with this, you're welcome to talk to the Kazekage," the agent explained. You could see nervous sweat appearing on the guard's face.

"Thanks for clearing up, we'll get going now," Raidou said.

You turned around to leave when the ANBU stopped you. "Aren't you forgetting something Sota?"

"What…?" you stuttered.

"Your sword," he said hand and handed it back to you. "Why are you so tense, I helped you out of this situation? Or do you have something to hide?"

You were getting used to people playing mind games with you now, but that didn't mean you were good at deciphering them. He either lied about watching you, which would make no sense, or he knew and he was letting you go for no good reason.

"Nothing, thanks," you mumbled and put the sword back in its sheath.

-x-

Raidou seemed to be taking a slight turn as you left the village and lead your team to a hill of sand.

"This is why we really are here and the reason I needed a distraction," he said.

"We're bringing back sand?" You asked and you really hoped that you hadn't risked your life for this.

"Come out Hayakawa," Raidou prompted.

Out from the sand came a moustached man dragging on a bag full of scrolls and other components sticking out. Was that an antenna? And when would you learn to detect genjutsu?

"This is my team, there is no time for chitchat." Raidou paused to think. "Kabuto, carry his bag and you Hayakawa, get on my back, we need to get back over the border before they notice that you're gone. It might be a bumpy ride, so if you get sick try not to throw up on me. Torune and Sota you're in the front, Kabuto you'll be in the back," he ordered.

Torune took the lead and you followed up on his side. Your leg was starting to itch more and more but you just had to keep going. If your team got caught now, it was a round of _friendly_ _interrogation_ for all of you.

But slowly as the hours passed, the itching started to disappear, and you could finally relax a bit more. Sure you were running your fastest, but your stamina was never-ending and plenty of water on you to drink, so it did nothing to tax your body. Being a Jinchuuriki was something you could recommend to everyone as long as you could keep it secret.

You gasped in pain as your leg began to act up again.

"Are you okay Sota," Raidou called out from the back.

"Yeah I'm fine, but I think I need to slow down a bit," you said.

"Alright, we should be far enough from Suna now. But if you cannot keep going, tell us and we'll handle it."

"Thanks, sensei," you replied.

The slower tempo helped a bit, it put less pressure on your leg, thus dampening the pain. And over the next hour, it slowly got better till you could no longer feel any pain.

But that was a false sense of security as your foot dug itself into the ground, causing you to fall face down into the sand.

You heard them halting to a stop.

"Sota, what's going on?" Raidou asked. You could hear the worry in his voice.

"I don't know sensei," you said. "I feel fine."

"Try standing up please," he suggested.

That was no problem at all. You could get going again, but another problem arose.

"Sensei, I... I… cannot form chakra in my leg. I… I… I..." words started to get harder and your team started to get blurry.

"Alright, Kabuto, give the bag to Torune and carry him," Raidou told the others.

"Sensei, I think it's best if you take him, he's more comfortable with you. I can manage Hayakawa," Kabuto said. "I don't want him to freak out in case he gets worse."

"Alright," Raidou replied and picked you upon his back.

Things got even more blurry from thereon. All you noticed was someone filling your mouth with water at random intervals. Till you dozed completely off.

-x-

When you woke up again you were no longer in a sandy environment and you were laying on something, not too hard, not too soft. It looked like you were somewhere inside and you could make out some mushy grey walls, but nothing more.

"Sota stay with us now."

You couldn't make out who said what anymore or even who was around you, all you could see was shadowy figures around you.

Someone ripped off your pants and you could see that your right leg had turned mostly black with some purple mixed into it. And it looked like small black tendrils were growing up from it. Everything was a blurry mess so you couldn't tell was what real and what your brain filled in.

"Poison."

"Kabuto I need you to cut it off to stop it from spreading."

"No, I cannot do it. Without his leg he cannot be a ninja, he'll struggle for the rest of life."

"It will grow out again. If you don't do it he will die."

"Legs don't grow out sensei, I cannot do it. I cannot ruin his life. Let me try curing the poison first. Maybe I can save his leg."

"There is no time, the longer you're delaying this the worse it will get. If it spreads too far, it's over for him. This is an order Kabuto, if you don't do it there will be severe consequences for you when we get home."

"I'll do it, I just wish there was another way. A better way."

You started to feel soft pricking on your leg before it stopped again.

"Higher up."

"The more he has left the easier it will be for him."

"If you cut too little, you risk keeping too much poison his system. Cut it here."

"Alright sensei."

Someone grabbed your hand and then you felt something in your leg again and this time it was more than just pricking. You squeezed your eyes together.

You started to breathe faster and faster.

"Calm down Sota, breathe in and out. In… and out…" Someone started stroking hair.

You followed his voice and things started to get better.

And soon after, the ordeal was over and pricking started to take over.

"Now seal away his leg and get out of here."

"But I need to deal with the rest of the poison in his system."

"No buts, out!"

The lock at the door clicked and ninja wire coiled around you. Your forehead protector uncoiled around your head and something else hit it instead.

Your body started to burn, as you slowly opened your eyes you could see that you were engulfed in blue fire.

You couldn't breathe properly. He was burning you alive! A loud scream left your mouth and you began to wiggle around, but the ninja wire prevented you from escaping.

Rapid slamming could be heard from the door.

"STOP IT" you screamed out in pain. "DON'T KILL ME!"

"It's okay, Sota, it's okay."

"MA… TA… HELP ME!" you tried. But there was no one there.

"Please, please," your voice started to get weaker, but the fires just continued to burn and it felt like you were laying inside a furnace.

"please save…"

As you were about to take your last breath of air, the fire stopped with a touch to your head. Your body was still burning, but it was at least calming down now.

"It's okay Sota, I needed to cleanse your body from poison and this was the best way I could think of doing it. By the time Kabuto would have found a less painful cure, you'd be dead," you heard Raidou saying. Your mind was still fuzzy, but you could finally recognize people's voices again.

The moment he unlocked the door, it shot open and Kabuto and Torune stepped in with each their kunai aimed at him.

"What did you do to him!?" Kabuto yelled. "Is he dead?"

"He's fine, put down the kunai. I did what I needed to do to save him. Sometimes you just need to do the right thing without hesitation."

Both of them lowered their arms and looked towards you as you were moving your eyes around.

"This is no time to relax, I want him checked out at the hospital as soon as possible, so if you're not ready to push through it, you'll stay here till someone can escort you home. Someone else will deal with Hayakawa and the equipment we brought, so don't worry about that."

"I'll come with you, if he gets worse again, you'd need a medic," Kabuto answered.

"And you Torune, do you want to stay here or do you think you can continue the last part?" Raidou asked.

"I… I want to go home now," Torune replied.

"Alr…" Raidou tried to say but was interrupted.

"But I need some rest, I don't think I can continue right now."

"Alright Torune, we'll see you again in a few days then."

He untied you and you grabbed onto his back.

"You should try sleeping a bit, I'll make sure you don't fall off me."

"I cannot sleep, everything hurts," you mumbled.

"It's okay, let me help you," he said and put his hand on your head.

-x-

You slowly opened your eyes and you could see white walls around you. Looking around it was clear you were in a hospital, or the medical equipment would make no sense. But there were no windows, something wasn't right here. You were pretty sure you had a window last time you were here, as you could remember Itachi climbing through your window with his Sharingan glowing. Your mouth was dry and your stomach was rumbling. Had you eaten any since you left Suna?

As you turned around you noticed an ANBU agent leaving the room, had he been observing you, for what reason?

Not too long after a nurse entered the room. "How are you feeling, are you still in pain?"

"I'm thirsty," you replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll get to it," she said.

Soon after the nurse was back with a glass of water which you happily chugged down.

"There is someone who wants to see you, I'll go get them," she said and left the room.

You were happy to hear that your friends decided to visit you. The door soon opened, but it wasn't Itachi, Shisui or Naruto, but rather your least favourite cyclops. You didn't need to read his non-existing facial clues to know that he was up to no good right now.

Before approaching you he turned around and put a seal on the door, probably to ensure no one else could enter.

"Sarutobi just accused me of attempting to assassinate the Kazekage's son," he stated.

"I didn't do anything," you responded. "I just thought he needed a friend."

"Friends make you weak, and he's our enemy," he sneered.

"Aren't Suna and Konoha allies?"

"They'll stab us in the back at the first opportunity, and so will we. As a Jinchuuriki your loyalty lies in the village, nowhere else."

You didn't reply to that.

"You're not telling me the truth," Danzo said.

"About what?" You wondered.

"Why did you seek him out?"

"I just told you, I thought.." you didn't get to complete your sentence before Danzo's cane hit your stomach.

"Answer properly."

You clutched your stomach. "He's a Jinchuuriki like me."

"How did you find him?"

"I asked about where I shouldn't go, so I assumed I'd find him in that direction," you said.

"So you assumed he was dangerous, why?"

"I…" that was true, how were you supposed to know Gaara was dangerous. All your experience with other Jinchuuriki didn't point in that direction. You were pretty harmless and while Naruto had successfully injured you, it was an accident and he wasn't really a big danger. If asked, would anyone here warn you about Naruto's location? No, they might dislike his pranks, but it wasn't enough to make people avoid an area, not like with Gaara.

"The only other Jinchuuriki you know is Naruto, so why think he was dangerous unless you know something more?" Danzo asked.

"I was looking for trouble as Raidou-sensei was asking for a distraction and it worked. That's why I asked for somewhere dangerous," you said. It was at least somewhat true.

"If you weren't seeking out him because he was a Jinchuuriki, how did you know he was one?" He asked.

"I lied about that, I've no idea if Gaara is a Jinchuuriki or not, I made it up. As I said, sensei needed a distraction and it worked according to him."

The cane hit you in the head this time.

"Don't pretend to be a stupid child, you are smart enough to see the fault in your logic."

"What?"

"If Raidou wanted a real diversion, he would have ordered Kabuto to do it and he would have a plan for it. There is no reason you'd think you'd need to stir up trouble. He wrote in his mission report that he just wanted fewer eyes on him, so he ordered you to walk around in the village, nothing more," Danzo explained.

How could you explain your way out of this with Danzo playing Ace Attorney, pointing out every contradiction in your testimony? What lie could you make up?

"I can sense the other Jinchuuriki. I knew who Gaara was before I meet up with him, I just needed to find him as he needed a friend. I didn't think you'd believe that I had Jinchuuriki senses, so I tried coming up with something more believable."

"So you can identify the rest of them?" Danzo asked.

"I…," you hesitated, did you want to out all of them to Danzo?

Again you were hit with the cane.

"Stop it," you yelled out.

"Let us start easy, how many Jinchuuriki do Konoha have?" Danzo asked.

"Two, me and Naruto," you said.

"How many do the other villages have?"

"Suna has one, Iwa has two, Kiri has two, Kumo has two, I mean one and Taki has one," you said.

There could be other mistakes, the Matatabi was not supposed to be in Konoha. So who knows what other switches there were.

But if you were wrong, there were no other lies to tell Danzo. He would know the true numbers, right? There hadn't been that many Tailed-Beast transactions since then. Rin had the Three-tailed beast for a while before it was sealed inside Yagura. And you couldn't know for sure if Konoha gained Matatabi in a war or if Hashirama never gave her to Kumo in this reality.

"Did Gaara tell you his name?" Danzo asked.

"No."

"So your senses told you that too?" He asked.

Why can't you think before you speak Sota?

"Yes," you said.

"Then can you tell me the host of the Eight-tailed beast?"

"Killer B, the Raikage's adopted brother."

You had to lend some credibility to your new lie and Killer B should be pretty well known, so you wouldn't tell him something he didn't know.

"What more can you tell me about him?" He asked.

"He is always rapping, but is quite bad at it," you said.

"And what form is the eight-tails?"

"Half-ox, half-octopus."

"What about the Three-tailed beast?" Danzo asked.

"Yagura, the 4th Mizukage," you said.

You felt bad for him, but there was nothing you could do right now to help him. You couldn't save everyone. And what kind of person would he be without the mind-control? Being short and cute didn't make you into a good person.

"What more can you tell me about him?" Danzo asked.

"I don't know," you said. You'd a feeling that he wouldn't let you get away with it. "Please don't hit me."

It was clear that Danzo struggled with the Japanese language as he was quick with his cane.

"What do you know?" Danzo stressed each word.

"I…" that was not the right answer as the stinging sensation in your face could testify to.

"He is controlled by Uchiha Madara," you called out in a panic.

"Uchiha Madara is dead," Danzo said, but he didn't say you were lying, which meant he was contemplating the consequences of what you were saying. Or did he already know and was testing you. If only he could say something so you could understand his thinking.

"Someone is posing as him," you said. Why did you say that? He was happy with your answer but he put you more and more on the edge.

"You know what Hiruzen will think if he hears all this?" He asked.

You shook your head.

"That you're a spy," Danzo said.

"I'm not a spy," you countered.

"I believe you, but I'm not sure if Hiruzen believes you."

"Then explain to him that I'm not a spy," you said. There was no reason he shouldn't trust you, he was much less of a paranoid bastard than Danzo.

"He doesn't trust me, and he doesn't trust you. He put that seal on your tongue for a reason."

"He doesn't need to trust you, he just has to hear your reasoning, it that is sound he should believe me," you argued,

"I've interacted with you a lot more than Hiruzen, not to mention that Root is acting in the dark, so I can see that you'd be a terrible spy. How did the last visits to Hiruzen go?" He taunted. "Last time he put that seal on you because he didn't trust you, and before that, you were dragged into the office by Kakashi for stealing his mask. If I were in his shoes, I too would have concluded that you were a spy."

"Who would I even be spying for?" You asked.

"That would be up to the Torture and Interrogation department to figure out and they won't give up before you confess," Danzo threatened.

"But there is nothing to confess to!" You called out.

"Then they won't stop."

"Please help me," you begged.

"I will, I've finally figured out how to remove that seal on your tongue and I can put my own on it," he explained.

"How does that help me?"

"I can prevent you from talking about any of this, if he sees that you're unable to talk about this, there is no point trying to extract information from you."

"I'm not sure if I like this," you said.

"It is your choice, either my seal or being stuck in T&I."

"Do I have to decide now?" You asked.

"Yes, he will ask you what happened in Suna the moment I leave. And even if you somehow make Hiruzen believe you, I won't let you back down in your room if you decline this. I need to be able to trust that you won't spill any secrets."

Danzo was right, regrettably so. You needed the protection from Hiruzen, you wanted the seal off, and if you were to protect yourself against future threats, you had to improve your seals. You just had to hope that your leg would heal, or else improving would be pointless.

You opened your mouth and stuck out your tongue to signal to him that you were ready.

The smile he gave you when picked up his tools was unnerving. But there was no pulling back now. The alternative was worse.

-x-

Hours later, after a ton of pricking and a quite sore tongue, Danzo was finally finished. And not a minute too early as the door crashed open with two ANBU agents entering the room alongside the Hokage.

"What is the meaning of this Danzo?" Hiruzen raised his voice.

Danzo seemed unfazed by the question and answered calmly, "I was taking his mission report."

"And that took several hours?" Hiruzen didn't look convinced. "Come with me to the office, I want to talk to you in private."

"I don't see why we can't talk about it here in front of the boy," Danzo said.

Hiruzen glared at him. "He doesn't need to hear everything that people say about him."

"He already knows you're keeping secrets from him," Danzo scoffed. "There is no need to confirm it and the way you're acting isn't making it any better."

Sarutobi stared at Danzo with a frown "What are you trying to do here?"

"I'm just giving him a chance to see if he can trust you or not. So what was it that you wanted to say?" Danzo asked

"You've been here for hours, and you're overstepping your boundaries. We agreed that you should teach him fuuinjutsu, not send him out on missions." The tension between them was started to get really uncomfortable.

"He was going to Suna anyway, so I decided to take advantage of the situation. He did not undermine his actual mission and from what Raidou wrote in his report, he saved the mission."

"It cost him his leg!" Hiruzen yelled out.

"If Raidou had been caught smuggling the engineer out of Suna, the consequences could have been worse. It is almost as if you're trying to find faults with me."

"Getting lucky won't last you forever," Hiruzen said.

"You're underestimating me Hiruzen, I don't do luck. Since this was Sota's first mission, I decided to check up on the mission he was assigned and it became clear that the plan was flawed. Any idiot could see that Raidou was going to get caught. So I made sure that wouldn't happen. Having him make contact with Suna's Jinchuuriki would draw attention away from whatever Raidou was doing. The only thing I didn't expect was that Suna would try to kill him for it. But I cannot take the blame for his sensei not being able to read his body language correctly. The report says that Sota was acting strangely after he came back to the inn, any competent ninja should have investigated the matter. I can hardly be held accountable for someone's else's shortcomings can I?"

"I find this hard to believe. You know very well that we've yet to gather intelligence on the current vessel for the One-tailed beast."

"What alternative explanation would you propose? I knew he was able to detect the Nine-tails within Naruto, so I wanted to see if he could sniff out someone else. We wouldn't want Suna to sneak their Jinchuuriki past us without knowing."

That was a much better lie, if only you had thought of it before him.

Hiruzen looked at Danzo, prompting him to continue.

"The mission was successful. The Kazekage's youngest son Gaara is the current host. I'll hand you a drawing of him later."

"I'm suspending your permission to teach Sota," Hiruzen said.

"You want him to go back to experimenting at home? We agreed to this arrangement for a reason."

"Without his supplies, he cannot do anything dangerous," Sarutobi said.

"You're a father and a grandfather, and yet you understand less about children than I. No wonder why all your children left you," Danzo taunted.

"Don't bring them into this."

"The boy will find a way no matter what we'll do. You're only risking more by saying no. What about we make a deal here, I will stay out of his missions and we'll keep the arrangement as before? Or will you cast him away as if he was your son?"

"Continue to teach him so this won't happen again," Sarutobi conceded. "But I'm warning you. If he gets injured because of your actions, I will inflict the same injuries on you. So make sure he doesn't lose any more limbs."

"If there is nothing more, I have more important matters to take care of," Danzo said and moved towards the door.

"One last thing while you are here," Sarutobi said and looked at you. "Sota, did you try to kill Gaara?"

" ", you tried saying no, but nothing came out. You tried again but your tongue started to burn.

"You won't get anything out of him," Danzo said and left the room.

"Open your mouth," Hiruzen ordered.

The moment he saw the seal on your tongue, his face was filled with anger. "You made a mistake allowing Danzo to put his seal on you."

You couldn't tell if his tone were threatening or meant as a warning. It felt like the former, he had lost the battle against Danzo and was taking it out on you. That was the last thing he said before he left with his ANBU, without even giving you a get well soon greeting.

But you weren't left alone for long as in came a grinning Naruto with Shisui right behind him carrying a gift basket of some sort.

"We brought dango, ramen and lots of other good stuff for you. I wish Jiji would visit me when I was sick too," Naruto said.

"Thanks, you two. I'm sorry that I broke my promise, I lost a bit," you said and showed them what little you had left of your leg."

"Don't worry Sota," Naruto said and hugged you. "I'll carry you around if you need to. You can throw kunai at the bad guys and I can run around and make sure we don't get hit."

Looking at Naruto made you think about how you didn't deserve good friends like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading so far. This chapter was huge struggle to get out and it didn't turn out exactly like I wanted to.
> 
> And a short question for you all.  
> If you were Sota, would you have taken Danzo's offer and let him seal your tongue, or would you try to make the Hokage believe you?


End file.
